“Not today, she has a ride. I’m driving tomorrow.”
“I’ll come over early to work then, so the kids can stay here. And I’ll grab donuts from Cle Elum. I expect all four kids would like that.”
“They’d be crazy not to. Are you heading back home now?”
He shook his head. “Supper’s at six according to Isabo, so I’m staying put. I should be able to get all the lower stuff replaced before I go.” He handed her the tea glass. “This was great. Thank you.”
She reached out to take the glass, looking at him. Smiling up at him. And when she clasped the glass, their fingers touched lightly, and then not so lightly.
Beautiful. Caring. Sensitive. Kind, but strong and stoic.
When he was a kid, he’d often wished for a mother like that. When they were little, the three brothers would play a wishing game about moms. What would they look like, how would they act?
Looking back, he saw three little cowpokes, wishing for what they could never have, a mother’s love.
“Mommy! I woke up and I stayed dwy again!”
Sheer delight raised Belle’s voice. She raced across the yard. Lucy left the glass in his hand and bent low to scoop the girl up, and the vision of her, holding Belle, was exactly what he’d wished for in a mom. Kind, happy, and focused, walking the straight and narrow.
“You sit there.”
Sandra Lee’s voice broadsided him as he watched Lucy with Belle.
“You sit there and you hush up. Don’t need no neighbors comin’ round, lookin’ after your noise. You sit and be quiet or you’ll have reason to cry, Trey-Trey. Good reason.”
He’d sat, all right. Tucked in a corner with a TV on, while his parents partied in the next room. Alone in the dark, sleeping and waking, always by himself in the same spot, scolded for even getting up to use the bathroom.
“I forgot the glass.” Lucy turned quickly, saw his face, and paused, uncertain. “Are you all right?”
“Most of the time.” He smiled at Belle, then her. “It’s just nice to see you with these guys.” He held on to the glass and walked with her. “I’ll bring this in if you don’t mind, and can I use the bathroom?”
“Yes.” She winced. “Of course you can. I never thought of that. I’m not used to having help. Just come in anytime and grab whatever you need. I have an unusually well-stocked refrigerator right now.”
“A wonderful thing.” He smiled, held the door open, and let her precede him, thinking she was one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen. He didn’t care that she was flushed and sweaty from working outside. Damp tendrils of hair clung to her forehead and cheeks, testimony to her endeavor.
Her devotion and tenderness caught him, the sheer beauty of living faith to the full. And the tank top and blue jeans were nothing a smart man should take lightly.
As he went through the kitchen, a paper fluttered off the table onto the floor. He picked it up.
“I’ll take that.” Lucy reached across the table in a quick move.
“Sure.” He started to hand the torn-out sheet from a notebook over, then paused when he realized what he held. “Are these song lyrics, Ms. Lucy?”
“Doodles while Cade was working is more like it.”
He studied the words. A tune began forming in his head, bouncy and funny, and he could see the irony in her words meld with the riffs of the guitar. “Were you thinking light and funny or deep and poignant?”
She took the sheet from his hands and set it on the counter behind her. “I wasn’t thinking at all; I was killing time while Cade worked through his math.”
“Then maybe we could think about it together,” he suggested. His offer drew her forehead into a frown, so he wouldn’t push it now.
But at some point in time, he’d like to play with those words and his thoughts about this single-mom life she led. Because if they could blend his thoughts with hers…they might have something really good, really special on their hands.
He went back outside a few minutes later, determined to do whatever it took to make Lucy Carlton’s life easier. He didn’t know much about her, but he knew what he saw, and he liked that well enough. She didn’t mind getting dirty, and she cleaned up nice. Real nice.
He scrubbed a hand to the back of his neck, causing instant pain. He’d never thought of sunblock. He’d been in such a hurry this morning that the simple mental checklist of working on a ranch went right out of his head.
Another song lyric came to him, an idea that might mesh her words with his. He grabbed the ever-present notebook from the cab of the truck, jotted it down, and then tossed the book back on the seat.
Josh and his brother pulled in. They braced the beams and set up the scaffold he’d need to complete the southern exposure. When they’d completed the work, Trey glanced at the clock. Six-twenty, which meant about thirteen hours before he would see Lucy again. Somehow that seemed too long.
“My mom isn’t answering her phone.” Ashley frowned at her smartphone. “I got some notice text thing that said my phone service was being shut off if I don’t pay seventy-two dollars to keep it on.”
Maude must have stopped paying for the phone, Lucy realized. She’d left Lucy to explain the abandonment and phone shutoff. Knowing Ashley and Maude’s relationship, Lucy was pretty sure the phone would be the initial crusher. Then, when Ashley realized the finality of her mother’s actions, reality would set in and she’d understand she’d been abandoned. Half the people in Lucy’s Overcomers self-help group saw lack of parental love as their doorway to addiction because parents were supposed to love their children. When they didn’t…Lucy swallowed a sigh and kept her voice light.
“Try her again in a little while. She might be in a spot with no reception. And my landline works great, kid. Call her from there.” She cocked her head toward the cordless phone on the counter. “I’m sure she’ll answer if the call goes through.”
“Why would she be in a spot without reception?” Ashley moved closer. “Her phone always worked at our house.”
“She’s not at your house.”
A deep V formed between Ashley’s eyes, but beyond the frown, something in her expression indicated she wasn’t going to be all that surprised by Maude’s disappearing act. “Where is she?”
Lucy shook her head. “I don’t know. She called me earlier and said she was moving.”
“Moving?”
Lucy couldn’t go on doing dishes while she broke a kid’s heart. She set the towel down and faced Chase’s sister. “She left early today. She said she needed to have some time on her own.”
“So then I should go back and live in our house so it’s not left all empty, right?” Ashley leaned forward. Concern for the house seemed to outweigh concern for her mother. “I heard on one of those HGTV shows, that’s bad for a place. You shouldn’t leave a house empty.”
Lucy knew there were many different ways of seeing a house as empty, and Maude Carlton’s place hadn’t been filled with love or cheer for years. “She sold the house, Ash.”
Ashley went pale as a winter moon. “What do you mean?”
Lucy sat down and tapped the table. Ashley plopped into the seat alongside her and stared, mouth open. “She sold the house and left. She called to tell me what she’d done while you were in school.”
“She wouldn’t do that.” Ashley stared at Lucy, as if trying to figure out her angle. “She’s my mother.”
Lucy kept silent.
Ashley got up, smacked the phone down, and paced angrily. At the end of the kitchen, she turned, triumphant. “You’re lying. I talked to her this morning when I told her about your stupid rules and my clothes, and she had plenty to say about you and my brother, Lucy.” She folded her arms and glowered. “Not exactly as pure as the driven snow, were you?”
Lucy tried to remember the girl was hurting, but Ashley’s words and expression made the idea of smacking her a more satisfying choice. It wasn’t a choice she could live with. She stood her ground, watching the girl’s anguish, wishing s
he could help. “I’m sorry, Ashley.”
“For?”
“Everything?” Lucy shrugged helplessly in sympathy. “That life bites sometimes. That your mom was too busy drowning her sorrows to be a good mother to you. That she walked away without saying good-bye.”
“Shut up.”
Lucy held her gaze, held it hard. “Don’t ever say that to me. You can be angry, you can be disappointed, but there are three young kids in this house and they don’t need to hear that kind of thing.” She crossed the kitchen halfway, picked up the landline, and offered it to Ashley. “Try her from my phone. Maybe you two can work something out.” She went outside to leave Ashley with her new reality.
A broken sob followed her out, but Lucy knew her sister-in-law. She was quick to react, then dealt with things in her own time. But this—
How did a teen deal with being left behind like an old piece of furniture?
Cade ran her way. “Do you see the thing Trey built?” He pointed to the scaffold, studying every angle. “If I could just get up there—”
“Me too!” exclaimed Cody. He shook with anticipation at the very idea of climbing onto the scaffold. “We could do all kinds of things up there, Mom!”
“No.” She bent low and locked eyes with her two adventure-seeking little men. “You could be killed if you fell from up there. Look how far up it is.”
“Not killed,” Cade argued with a skeptical face. “Busted, maybe.”
“Yes, killed,” she told him. “Or busted. Either way it is not happening, fellas.” She pointed up. “Do not even think of going up there. It’s dangerous and it’s here for Trey to do a job, a very important job. Do you understand me?”
“Yes ma’am.” Cade scrubbed his toe into the dirt, but Cody gazed upward with such a look of longing that Lucy figured she might have to lock him up for the next few weeks.
“Cody.” He sighed and looked her way. “I mean it. I’d be a terrible mother if I didn’t do my best to keep you guys safe and sound. Got it?”
“Yessss.” He drew out the word to show his frustration with silly things like rules to keep him alive.
“Cody.” She added a note of expectation and warning to his name this time.
“Yes ma’am.”
“And you?” She shifted her attention back to Cade. “We understand each other, right?”
“But what if Trey says it’s okay when he’s here?”
Lucy groaned inside. Raising boys was no piece of cake. They didn’t come with instruction manuals, and she knew they needed to explore their surroundings and try new things, but where did exploration end and death wish begin?
She wasn’t sure, but she’d talk to Trey tomorrow. The lure of a climbing adventure put the light of exploration in their eyes. Keeping them safe had to be priority one. And once the roofers arrived tomorrow with their various ladders in place?
She couldn’t imagine keeping the boys grounded enough to keep them out of harm’s way. The expectation on their faces made the thought of the next few weeks stretch interminably. An angry, despondent teen, and boys with a death wish.
It couldn’t get much better than that.
“I’ve got one rule to help make today’s car shopping adventure go well,” Trey announced as he watched Belle struggle to fasten her five-point harness the next morning. He bumped knuckles with her when they heard that final click. “Booyah.”
Two dimples flashed in her rounded cheeks, and he’d have to be a miserable thing not to feel great when a cute little kid grinned his way.
“And what might that rule be?” Lucy checked Cody and Cade’s shoulder belts before she brought her attention back to Trey.
“Price is off the table.”
She shook her head instantly. “Not gonna happen.”
“It is because I’ve given this a lot of thought.” He started the engine, accessed the road, and headed toward Ellensburg. “If you sued the heck out of me for missing that stop sign, my lawyer would jump at the chance to settle for the cost of a van. You didn’t do that—”
“I might now that you’ve suggested it,” she mused, then smiled.
“So accepting the van without making me jump through silly hoops would be good. And the sooner we find one, the sooner I’m back at work on the barn. And the faster the barn’s done, the sooner I can start on the porch.”
“The porch?” A quick glance her way said the thought of her porch being fixed brightened her gaze.
“It needs a doll-up. I’m going to provide it. I want to get at least those two things done before Dad’s surgery.”
“He’ll need care afterward.”
“Yes.” Trey didn’t mention that he’d be in need of care himself. It wasn’t like anything could ever be kept a secret in Gray’s Glen, but for the moment he was okay being on the down-low. Once folks found out he was donating part of his liver to help Sam, they’d talk the thing to death.
Trey didn’t want to think about it, much less talk about it, so keeping it under wraps was fine by him.
“The porch has been needing work for a while.” He wished she didn’t look so guilty saying it.
“Lucy, there’s only so much a parent can do. Or should do. Taking care of kids should always come first.” Didn’t she get that? How her special brand of love would make all the difference to these kids in the end?
“But then everything else gets let go.”
“And that’s why Hank the Handyman is here. At your service, ma’am.” He pulled into the dealership, jumped out, and circled the car to open her door, then was glad when she let him. “Perfect.” He looked right at her when he said it, sending a quieter message, and when she blushed, he knew she understood he meant more than the simple act of opening her door. He meant she was special, even if she didn’t see it that way. He gave her a hand down, then helped Cade swing the door wide. “You ready to shop for a van, guys?”
“We can help pick it out? Like, for real?”
“Your opinion is very important to me,” Lucy assured Cade. “Let’s go see what they’ve got, okay?”
“Okay!”
Trey had worried the kids might get bored.
They were the opposite of bored from the minute they explored the first van until the time they decided on the third one. “This one is so awesome, Mom!” Cade studied the big forest-green vehicle with the air of a master. “There’s room for everybody, and it’s got a DVD player.”
“And Internet capability,” Trey noted.
Lucy scrunched her nose. “Well, we don’t have Internet devices, so that’s no biggie. But we can borrow DVDs from the library.”
The thought of watching DVDs in the car had the boys bumping knuckles, actually getting along for a change. “There’s always Ashley’s fancy phone.”
“Her phone’s dead,” Lucy told him as Belle explored the third seat of the van. “Her mother left town and cut off her phone account. So Ashley is reeling right now for a variety of reasons.”
He hadn’t thought too much of the insolent teen, but Lucy’s words made him reconsider. To have a mother who would just take off on you, abandon you to your fate…he understood that kind of mothering too well. Time created distance, and maybe understanding, but it didn’t necessarily heal those old deep wounds. When your mother didn’t care enough to make you important, it left a solid mark on even the toughest hide. “I’m real sorry that happened.”
“It’s a raw wound.” Lucy watched as the kids explored the beautiful vehicle. “Maude, Ashley’s mother, didn’t worry much about mothering after Chase died and wasn’t all that good at it when he was alive.”
“A toxic personality?”
“Yes. And self-indulgent, so I probably should have seen this coming.”
He keyed in on the last phrase. “Do you always do that?”
She looked up at him while the kids pretended to be camping in the big new van. “Do what?”
“Take on guilt for things you couldn’t possibly be responsible for?” He didn’t wa
nt to anger her, but she couldn’t be in charge of the world. “Because Ashley’s mother could have chosen differently.”
“I know.” She kept her tone soft so the children wouldn’t overhear. “I’m second-guessing myself about having Ashley come live with us. It sounded like a great olive branch at the time, but I didn’t weigh the effect of her behavior on my kids well enough. I’ve had good success helping teens in the church’s Overcomers group. That spurred my action, but I was doing the rose-colored glasses thing and thinking how we could benefit her. Not the other way around. And now with Maude gone…”
“You’re stuck.”
“Yes. I love Ashley,” she continued. “She was Belle’s size when I started dating her brother. And someplace deep inside she loves me too, but it’s not easy to break through her anger.”
“It’s a tough wall to breach when kids have too much time on their hands. Loose time makes it easy to feel sorry for yourself.”
She grabbed his arms with two very feminine hands that shouldn’t have a death grip, but did. “That’s it.” Excitement eased the look of strain. “That’s a great idea, Trey.”
Trey was pretty sure he hadn’t had an idea, but he liked the anticipation in her eyes and the feel of her palms against his forearms. “Glad to oblige. But I’m not sure what I’ve done exactly.”
“A service project,” she explained. “Doing something to stop thinking about ourselves. That’s the best way of clearing our heads.”
She was light-years ahead of him, but he pretended to keep up. “You’re right. Absolutely. But what’s available to do?”
“People have been doing all kinds of things since the fire. Providing food and comfort for all the volunteers in town. Helping on-site, being a ‘gofer’ so the construction crew doesn’t have to stop to get things every five minutes. I’ve got all those nice groceries now, and Ashley loves to bake. We could start with baking things for the work crews. They’ve got a picnic area set up across from the church. That would be a beginning.”
“For all his faults, my father always believed in keeping us so busy we didn’t have time to think about ourselves or cause too much of a stir,” Trey said, then amended the thought slightly when Cade and Cody started to get into it inside the van. “Unless we were fighting with each other.” He reached into the van, collared Cody, and scolded him with a look when he started picking a fight with Cade. He didn’t use words. Just gave the kid a look, much like Murt had done with him back in the day. And it worked.
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