Chapter 5
“Don’t,” Kasey warned as she stared down at the large stain on the carpet that was never coming out.
“I didn’t say anything,” Sara pointed out in that innocent tone that only worked on her husband and well, every man alive, but it never worked on Kasey, because she knew better than to believe that innocent act.
“Yeah, but you were going to,” Kasey said, looking from the large stain that no amount of cleaning was going to remove to the dried trail of blood that her steamer had turned into an interesting shade of brown.
“But-”
“Don’t,” Kasey said, shaking her head as she looked between the two stains, wondering if she could somehow rearrange the furniture to cover them.
“Fine,” Sara said, sounding truly disappointed and making Kasey’s lips twitch with amusement even though she was anything but amused this morning.
“How long were you at the hospital?” Sara asked, as she glanced towards the kitchen where the real reason for her mood waited along with a box of Brillo pads and the biggest bottle of Lysol she could find.
“Until nine. I would have stayed longer, but apparently there was an emergency at home that needed my attention,” she said dryly, reluctantly following her best friend’s gaze towards the mess that she was going to kill Eric for.
“Is he going to be okay?” Sara asked, as Kasey took in the burnt mess covering the stove, the ruined pans, and scorched countertop and shook her head.
“I hope so,” she said, assuming that Sara was talking about the poor man that her daughter had nearly maimed and not the bastard that almost burned the house down, because he’d tried to make the meatloaf cook faster.
Thank god Mikey hadn’t been practicing her fast ball, Kasey thought as she propped her hands on her hips and looked from the kitchen to the living room and back again, deciding that she really didn’t have much of a choice any longer.
She was going to have to gut both rooms.
“Where is he now?” Sara asked, as she walked over to the kitchen and helped herself to a Coke.
“Next door resting,” and hopefully not making plans to sue her, Kasey silently added.
“What did the doctor say?” Sara asked, as she stepped over the mess on the floor and leaned against the kitchen island before she thought better of it and settled for a chair at the table instead.
“That he was lucky that Mikey hadn’t thrown her fast ball,” Kasey said, deciding that there was no point in putting it off any longer. She grabbed her cleaning supplies so that she could make use of her kitchen one last time before she was forced to take matters into her own hands.
“Speaking of Mikey, where is she?” Sara asked, as she examined her nails, looking for any imperfections the manicurist might have left behind.
“In her room praying for a miracle,” Kasey said, sighing heavily as she once again wondered what she was going to do with that kid.
“It was an accident,” Sara pointed out quietly, earning a glare.
“I know it was an accident, but that’s not the point. She shouldn’t have been out there in the first place,” Kasey said, trying not to think of just how many rules her daughter had broken last night.
It had to be a record and that was saying something.
“You used to sneak out of your room,” Sara said, clearly feeling the need to come to her goddaughter’s rescue, but sadly, the compassionate gesture was going to get her killed.
“Not when I was ten!” Kasey snapped, wondering what the hell was wrong with her-
“You’re right. You were six,” the betraying bitch said with a smirk.
“I had my reasons,” she said with a sniff as she set to work on scrubbing the stove.
“Really? And what were those reasons?” Sara asked innocently.
Since answering that question would only make her look bad, she decided to shift the focus back on Mikey and away from all the horrible things that she’d done as a child. “She shouldn’t have been out there.”
“No, she shouldn’t have been,” Sara agreed.
“And she shouldn’t have been talking with a stranger,” Kasey said, as she mentally tallied all the offenses that Mikey had committed last night.
“No, she shouldn’t have-”
“Reese isn’t a stranger,” the little convict said, as she tentatively walked into the kitchen, unsure of her welcome and thankfully no longer looking like she was on the verge of crying.
Kasey blinked at her daughter. “Because he’s an old friend of the family that you’ve known since birth and therefore felt completely justified in sneaking out of the house so that you could be alone with him on the beach and out of screaming distance? Is that why?”
“His name is Reese Bradford and he’s a cop,” Mikey said with a shrug as she opened the fridge and helped herself to some chocolate milk while Kasey stood there, rubbing the bridge of her nose, wondering if the state of Massachusetts considered spanking her child until her hand fell off child abuse.
Probably, she mused with a sigh as she forced herself to focus.
“And you know this how?”
“Because he showed me his badge,” Mikey said with a shrug as she closed the refrigerator door and leaned back against the kitchen island, only to send Kasey a sheepish smile and a, “Sorry,” when the move caused another chunk of counter to break off and add a new crack to the collection marring the tiled floor below.
“Wait. He showed you his badge?” Sara asked, as Kasey stood there trying to decide whether or not this new piece of information made this worse.
Judging by the expression on Sara’s face it was worse, a lot worse.
Mikey nodded as she grabbed one of the many baseballs that she kept lying around the house and started rolling it between her hands. “He works for the State police department,” her sweet baby girl said, as Kasey tried to wrap her mind around the idea that her ten-year-old daughter had taken down a cop.
“What were you planning on making?” Sara asked, as Kasey rubbed her temples, for some reason having a difficult time seeing the bright side of things this morning.
“Cupcakes,” she said lamely.
“Might want to add a casserole to the mix,” Sara, always helpful, added as she returned to inspecting her manicure.
“It’s the least we can do,” Mikey added solemnly.
For a moment, Kasey considered making Mikey help her cook, but the poor man had already suffered enough. Trying not to think of everything that she already had to do today, she checked the fridge, made sure that she had everything that she would need to make lasagna. After that she started pulling the ingredients out for the cupcakes, knowing that they were going to have to cool before she could frost them and resigned herself to spending the next couple of hours cooking for Yummy.
“What are we making him?” Mikey asked, as she leaned back against the kitchen counter, the part that wasn’t on the verge of breaking off.
“Shouldn’t you be in your room?” Kasey asked pointedly, still trying to figure out what she was going to do with her. She wanted to yell, but she was afraid that once she started that she would never be able to stop. So, it was probably best for everyone concerned if Mikey spent the day in the safety of her room.
“Yeah,” Mikey said with a small sigh while she looked down at the baseball as she rolled it between her hands before looking back up and making Kasey’s heart break for the poor kid when she saw how completely devastated she was by all this. “I didn’t mean to hurt him,” she said with a stubborn set of her jaw as her bottom lip quivered and her eyes teared up, struggling not to let them know just how bad she felt about what happened.
“I know you didn’t,” Kasey said, pulling her into her arms and giving her a reassuring squeeze, praying that Mikey didn’t lose it, because she wasn’t sure that she could deal with trying to talk her down from the attic today on top of everything else.
“I made sure that he didn’t throw like a girl first,” Mikey explained with a little sniffle after a slight hesitation.
“I’m sure you did,” she said, somehow managing to keep a straight face, which meant that under no circumstances could she look in Sara’s direction, because she’d lose it if she did.
“I didn’t throw my fast ball,” Mikey added with a little sniffle.
“And we all appreciate it,” she said solemnly, thankful that her daughter had at least followed that rule last night.
If only she’d followed the others, Kasey thought, biting back a sigh before she gave one last squeeze and nudged her in the direction of her room, where she would be spending the rest of the day. Once Mikey was out of sight, she threw an exasperated look in Sara’s direction and said, “This is all your fault.”
“My fault? How is this my fault?” Sara demanded in outrage as she gave her manicure one last look so that she could return Kasey’s glare.
“Because you encouraged her to play baseball!”
“What?” Sara said, frowning in confusion before she snapped, “That wasn’t me! That was you!”
Which of course, it had been, but since pointing fingers wasn’t going to help, at least not when it was her fault, she decided to change the subject.
“Think he’ll be mad?” she asked, toying with the egg carton as she looked at her best friend, praying that for once that she would tell her what she wanted to hear.
“You mean because your ten-year-old daughter split his head open? Why would he be mad about that?” she asked brightly before rolling her eyes, shaking her head in disgust and mumbling, “I really just can’t work with you sometimes.”
“Maybe I should make another casserole?” Kasey said, nodding to herself, definitely another casserole and maybe some cookies.
“Yeah, that should make up for it,” Sara said dryly, making Kasey whimper pathetically and had her reaching for a bag of lemons as she resigned herself to putting off starting renovations for another day.