Bittersweet by Shirlee McCoy (18)

Here’s how it all went down:

She’d been sitting there, minding her own business, trying to eat breakfast. She’d had the newspaper in just the right position to block her view of Lu and of the little glass cup that held Lu’s false teeth. Two months living back on the homestead, and she knew the routine. No internet. No TV. Five a.m. breakfast followed by mucking out the stalls and feeding all twelve of Lu’s therapy horses.

So, yeah . . .

She’d been trying to eat breakfast before she mucked out the stalls. Multitasking, munching on toast and searching the help-wanted section of the paper for a job.

God knew, she had to have one of those.

Lu needed money, and Rumer was going to make sure she had it. She’d already emptied out her savings and cashed in her 401 (k), but there were still medical bills to pay. She’d be able to go back to teaching in the fall, but right now things were tight.

Which made Lu worry.

That wasn’t good for someone who’d had triple bypass surgery.

So Rumer was going to get a job or two and put every dime she earned into paying off the last few medical bills. When she went back to Seattle in the fall, she’d know that Lu was going to be okay. More important, Lu would know it.

And that’s why she’d been sitting at the tiny kitchen table in Lu’s tiny house ignoring the false teeth and looking for work. If things had played out the way they had for the past week, she’d have seen nothing in the help-wanted section, dumped her toast in the scrap bucket, and headed out to do the chores.

But in one of those cosmic twists of fate or moments of divine intervention, Lu had shoved another paper across the table.

“Rumer Truehart,” she’d said. “Take a look at that.”

So, of course, she had.

And of course it had been the gossipy little newspaper that was published in the next town over. The Benevolence Times.

“County fair is going to be there in two weeks.” Lu had jabbed at the announcement. “Bet they’ll have some horses.”

“You already have twelve.”

“There are plenty of people on the waiting list to bring their kids here. We train one more horse, I can accept three more children into the program.”

“I can’t stay to train horses, Lu. You know that. I have to go back to the Montessori school in the fall. Otherwise they’ll give my job to someone else.”

“We could still go look. I’ve been cooped up in this house for too long. I’m getting antsy,” Lu had said.

A total lie.

Lu never got antsy. She worked hard. All day every day. Running a nonprofit center that provided therapy horses for kids with disabilities.

But Rumer had promised herself she wouldn’t get in any arguments with her grandmother. So she’d nodded and skimmed the page.

Which is how she’d seen the advertisement. Right at the bottom. Boxed in with a dark line that had pulled her eyes right to it.

It was the first help-wanted ad she’d seen in a week, and she’d jumped all over the opportunity. She’d mucked the stalls and made the call. When Sullivan hadn’t answered, she’d decided to find the farm and apply in person.

And that’s how she’d ended up on a dirt road just outside of Benevolence, Washington. Chugging along in Lu’s old pickup, listening to the oldies station. She’d found the sign for Peaceful Valley Organic Farm and had headed up the long, windy road that seemed to lead to it. She’d been able to see the farmhouse in the distance—a two-story monstrosity that someone had painted yellow.

Yellow!

She’d taken a quick peek at the slacks she’d borrowed from Aunt Minnie. Yellow polyester. Bell-bottoms. Probably from the seventies. Minnie never got rid of anything. She had an entire lifetime of stuff shoved into the double-wide trailer that sat on the east end of the homestead.

Rumer had been thinking that maybe the yellow slacks and yellow house were a sign, a portent, a hint from God that the job was hers. That after two months of near hell, things were finally going to get better.

And then she’d looked up at the road again . . .

She’d looked up, and the girl was right there!

Wandering out from between overgrown field grass, skin glowing rich brown in the midmorning light. Pink tutu shimmering. Ivory tank top hanging loose. Boots clomping. A bouquet of early spring flowers clutched in her hand.

Rumer had had about three seconds to take it all in, and then she’d swerved, bouncing off the road and straight into a rain culvert. Nose down, steam spilling out of the hood.

She’d scrambled out of the truck, her purse hooked over her shoulder, and the girl had still been there. Standing right in the middle of the road.

And that’s how she’d ended up here.

On a dirt road.

With a strange kid who was dressed in nothing but a tutu, a thin-strapped tank, a tiara, and bright green rain boots.

“Hello,” she said, because what else would she do? She sure wasn’t going to let the kid wander back to wherever she’d come from. Half-naked and alone. It was chilly, for God’s sake. Early spring in eastern Washington, and winter still had the upper hand.

The little girl cocked her head to the side, eyeing Rumer with a look that was both suspicious and mutinous.

“Who are you?” she finally replied, every word enunciated and precise. Surprising, because she didn’t look older than three.

“Rumer Truehart. How about you? What’s your name?” She crouched so that they were eye level, offering a smile.

She got a scowl in response.

“I’m not supposed to talk to strangers,” the girl said, her eyes so dark Rumer could barely see the pupils. “Not even if they offer me candy. Do you have candy?”

“No, I don’t. I do have a jacket, though. And it’s cold. How about I let you wear it?” She shrugged out of the yellow jacket that matched the slacks. Minnie had insisted she wear both. A job interview was important, and Rumer couldn’t go in the jeans and T-shirts she’d brought from home.

Rumer could have and would have.

But . . . again: She’d promised not to argue with her grandmother and that meant she also couldn’t argue with Minnie in front of her. So she’d put on the pantsuit and the pretty white eyelet blouse that went with it.

She held out the jacket, and the little girl snatched it from her hand.

“I’m not cold,” she declared as she struggled to get her tiny arms into the sleeves, the little bouquet still in her hand, pink and purple petals floating to the ground as she maneuvered into the jacket. “But thank you very much for this.”

She had a lisp.

Which would have been totally adorable if they’d been anywhere but on that road with not another adult in sight. The kid had parents somewhere. Parents who obviously were not doing their job.

“You’re very welcome. I bet your mom will be happy that you’ve got a jacket,” she said, hoping to break the ice and get a little more information about the girl and her family.

It was the wrong thing to say.

One minute, the girl was looking at the jacket’s daisy-shaped buttons, the next she was crying. Not louds sobs. Just silent tears that were sliding down her cheeks. “Mommy is at the hothpital,” the girl wailed, the lisp suddenly more pronounced.

“Are you trying to get to her?” Rumer guessed, because why else would the child be wandering around carrying a wilted bouquet of flowers?

“I’m making her medicine.” She sniffed back more tears and waved the flowers in front of Rumer’s face.

“Medicine?”

“Yep! Heavenly read me a book about a boy who climbed a mountain to pick a flower that would make his best friend better. One flower is good. Ten flowers is better.” She waved the bouquet again.

“Who is Heavenly?” she asked.

“My sister. She’s twelve. I’m six.”

“You’re—” Tiny was on the tip of her tongue.

She didn’t say it.

Six-year-olds didn’t often want to be told they were little.

“Is she taking care of you today?” she said instead.

“Nope. She’s making cake for Twila. It’s her birthday.”

“Is Twila also your sister?”

“Yes, she is,” the girl said emphatically. “And no one better say she’s not! Markie Winston tried it, and I popped him right in the nose. He was bleeding and everything.” She swung her free hand in a wide-arcing left hook. “Now I can’t go back to school until Wednesday. The man is not happy about it.”

“The man?”

“Yeah.” She dropped her fist and leaned close. They were nearly nose to nose, and Rumer could see the trail of drying tears on her cheeks and a thin, pale scar near her hairline. There was another one right beside her lip.

“He’s not so good at kids,” the girl whispered. “Heavenly says that’s what happens when you get old without ever having children.”

“Who is he?” Certainly not the girls’ father. Maybe a relative who’d been called in to help while their mother was in the hospital?

“My uncle. Daddy’s brother. Daddy is dead, so he had to come and help out while Mommy is in the hospital.” The whisper had gotten softer, and Rumer almost didn’t hear the last part.

She saw the tears, though.

They were rolling down the girl’s face again.

“Oh, honey,” she said, giving her a gentle hug. “I’m so sorry about that.”

“Me too,” the girl wailed, her skinny arms wrapping around Rumer’s waist, the flowers rustling as they smashed against her back.

Rumer could have cried too. That’s how awful she felt.

It all just seemed so wrong and so completely horrible. The sun was warm and bright and high, the sky blue, the air crisp. The dirt road stretched toward the yellow house and the horizon, tall grass and trees dotting the landscape. All of it picturesque and perfect.

And a little girl was standing brokenhearted in the middle of all of it.

Alone except for the stranger who’d found her. As soon as Rumer got the little girl calmed down, she was going to find the uncle and give him a piece of her mind. She didn’t care if he was ancient as days. He should still have more sense than to let a six-year-old out of his sight. Sure, this area was rural. Sure, most people were pleasant, kind, and helpful, but there were predators everywhere. Not to mention the river, the woods, the roads that crisscrossed the land.

Plenty of trouble for a child to get into.

She brushed her palms down the girl’s cheeks, wiping the tears away.

“How about I take you home? You can put your flowers in a vase and bring them to your mother the next time you go to the hospital,” she suggested.

“I’m not bringing her flowers.” The girl’s chin quivered, but she’d stopped crying. “I’m making medicine. I’m going to bake it into magic cookies, and Mommy will eat them and wake up.”

It would be hard for someone who was asleep to eat, but Rumer wasn’t going to point out the flaw in logic.

“How about we go do that, then?” she asked. “Do you know how to get home?”

“Why wouldn’t I? Mrs. Bridget says I’m just about the smartest first-grader she’s ever met.”

“She’s your teacher?”

“Yes. She lets me read the second-grade reading books. She also sent me to the office when I punched Markie.”

“Violence is never the answer.”

“Maybe not, but it still felt good!” the girl responded, skipping ahead, her tiara glinting in the sun.

Rumer had to jog to keep up. Not easy to do in her borrowed shoes. Two-inch cream-colored pumps that Minnie had insisted she wear. Probably because the slacks were too long, and not one woman in the Truehart family could fix that. They could muck stalls, feed horses, teach kids. They could cook, clean, and organize. They could even run a very well-respected nonprofit, milk goats and cows, make cheese, plant and harvest a garden.

What they could not do—had never in the history of Truehart women been able to do—was find a good man or sew a straight hem.

So, yeah, she was tottering on the heels, trying to not fall face-first into the wheat grass. She didn’t notice that they’d taken a sharp turn through the field until she jogged onto a gravel path that cut across a fenced cow pasture. Her foot slipped on loose pebbles, and she went down. Legs one way. Arms the other.

She landed with a solid thump that knocked the wind right out of her.

She must have closed her eyes on impact, because she opened them and was looking straight up at the bright blue sky.

“You okay, Rumer Truehart?” the little girl said, suddenly at her side and peering into her face.

“Fine. I’m just not used to wearing heels.”

“Mommy says they take practice. Maybe you should practice more.” She offered her hand, and it was as tiny as the rest of her.

“That’s a good idea, poppet,” Rumer said as she got to her feet and brushed dirt off her slacks.

“Poppet?” She giggled, the sound like a creek bubbling over smooth stones. “Is that the same as puppet?”

“No. It’s—”

“Moise!” a man called from somewhere to their left. “Moise Bethlehem Bradshaw! You’d better get your butt moving and get back home.”

The girl froze, her dark eyes widening.

“That’s the man!” she said. “And he said butt!”

There were a lot worse things a man could say. Rumer had heard them all when she was the little girl’s age.

“Moise!” someone else called. Female and young from the sound of it. “You’re not even going to get one teeny tiny piece of cake if you don’t hurry up home!”

“Coming!” the little girl yelled, and took off running, her scrawny legs churning beneath layers of pink tulle.

Rumer followed, abandoning her heels so she could keep up, racing across rough gravel and then onto soft grass.

The house was straight in front of her, maybe a quarter of a mile away, the clapboard siding pristine, the white-washed front porch railings sturdy and practical-looking.

Moise was beelining it across the yard. No time wasted now. She was a girl on a mission, her tutu swishing, her rain boots gleaming in the sunlight.

Must have been the threat of no cake.

“Moise?!” the man called again, and this time Rumer saw him coming around the side of the house.

She’d expected gnarled, stooped, old. She’d expected a cane or a walker, gray hair, chewing tobacco, a spittoon.

She sure as heck had not expected Mr. GQ cover model. Mr. Frilly-Pink-Aprons-Make-Me-Seem-Even-More-Masculine.

She didn’t expect him to be carrying a chubby baby, but there was that, too, and the girl jogging along beside him, dark hair in cornrows, big blue eyes filled with anxiety. She was a hot mess—too-short shirt showing three inches of skin, too-tight jeans clinging to bony hips. Red lipstick smeared across her mouth.

And her eyeshadow . . .

Rumer wouldn’t even go there

“Moise!” the girl cried, running over to Moise and grabbing her arm. “Where have you been! If Sunday were here she’d shi—”

“Don’t,” the man cut her off.

“What?” she snapped, whirling on him like they were mortal enemies about to go to war.

“Use foul language in front of your siblings. I’ve already been called to the school three times because your brothers are repeating you.”

“Don’t blame me for the tweebs’ problems,” the girl said. “They’ve been brats since the day I got here.”

“They are not brats!” Moise yelled, pulling back her foot in preparation for what Rumer thought would be a well-aimed kick.

Time to put a stop to things.

She stepped forward, lifted Moise off her feet, and set her down about a yard away from her target.

“Violence,” she said, looking into Moise’s angry face. “Is never the answer.”

“It’d sure feel good,” she fumed.

“Not when I kicked you back,” the girl retorted.

“Enough, Heavenly. Nobody is kicking anybody,” the man said, and Rumer swung around to look at the girl.

Heavenly.

The twelve-year-old sister.

She looked sixteen, and she had trouble written all over her scrawny body and her scowling face. Rumer recognized it. She’d seen it every time she looked at her teenage self in the mirror.

“Who are you? What were you doing with my niece?” the man said, and she realized that while she’d been studying Heavenly, he’d been studying her.

“My name is Rumer Truehart. Your niece walked out onto the road in front of my truck. I almost hit her.” She added the last so that he’d know just how serious the situation had been.

“Geez,” he muttered, raking a hand through thick black hair. “Sorry about that. She was supposed to be napping.”

“Six is a little old for a nap,” she pointed out.

“It’s also a little old for punching and kicking when we don’t get our way. Since she still does both, I figure she still needs a nap. Are you from the county?”

“The county?”

“Social services? CPS? Whatever the heck they call it now.” The baby grabbed a handful of his hair, and he winced, pulling her dimpled hand away from his head.

“I’m not from the county. I was looking for Peaceful Valley Organic Farm.”

“You’re from the state tax assessment board?”

“No, I—”

“Insurance adjuster?”

“I’m here—”

“Real estate agent? SPCA? School board?”

“None of the above.”

“Then you must be from the church. We have enough casseroles, and I promise I’ll bring the kids back to Sunday school once we get a little more settled.”

“Look, Mr. . . . ?”

“Bradshaw. Sullivan.”

Her heart thumped. One hard, quick jerk of acknowledgment. This was Sullivan? The guy from the help-wanted ad? The one who needed a housekeeper /gardener/cook who had experience with kids?

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Bradshaw,” she said, stepping forward and offering her hand.

He took it.

He had a firm, quick handshake. The kind she’d expect from someone with confidence and very little need to prove himself.

She had a thing about handshakes. Probably because she’d met so many people when she was a kid. All the people he’d mentioned and more: CPS, social services, foster parents, caseworkers, school counselors. Police. Doctors. Clergy.

“Nice to meet you, too, but I’m right in the middle of about three dozen things. Thanks for making sure my niece got home.” He was already turning away, snagging the back of Moise’s tank top when she tried to dart ahead.

“I came about the ad,” she called as the motley group of unhappy people moved away.

She shouldn’t have said anything.

She knew it.

Heavenly wasn’t the only one who had trouble written all over her.

Sullivan Bradshaw did, too.

A different kind of trouble.

The kind that could cause a woman to make mistakes, to forget her promises to herself, to lose pieces of her heart that she wouldn’t ever get back. He was black-haired, green-eyed, handsome-as-the-devil trouble, but she needed the job, and his little family needed her.

They need someone.

She mentally reminded herself.

“What ad?” he asked, handing the baby to Heavenly, releasing his hold on Moise, and turning to face Rumer again.

The preteen didn’t waste time. She marched up the porch steps like a martyr going to her doom, dragging poor little Moise along behind her.

“The ad?” Sullivan prodded impatiently.

“Yes. Right. You ran it in the Benevolence Times?” She pulled the newspaper from her oversize purse and tapped the ad. She’d circled it in blue marker.

“Housekeeper/Gardener/Cook. Experience with kids a plus.” She read it out loud, and he frowned, crossing the distance between them and taking the paper from her hand.

He scanned it quickly, thrust it back. “That’s my number, but I didn’t pay for the ad.”

Good. Great. Because he looked even better close up than he had a few feet away—long dark lashes, firm full lips, hands that were nicked and scarred and currently speckled with what looked like orange frosting. He had it on his apron, too. And in his hair.

“In that case, I’ll get out of your hair,” she mumbled, turning away because she definitely did not want a job working for Sullivan Bradshaw.

“Nice meeting you, Mr. Bradshaw.” She called the last over her shoulder as she retreated.

Ran for her life was more like it.

As far as she was concerned, the big yellow house was filled with more trouble than any one person could handle, and Rumer? She’d already had enough trouble to last several lifetimes.

“I didn’t run the ad. One of my brothers probably did. I’ve been a little . . . busy,” he said.

She’d reached the little gravel path, and she was ready to step onto it, forget this effort in futility, this midmorning faux pas.

“But we are looking for help, and if you’re willing to wait a few minutes while I finish up what I was doing, I can interview you and take a look at your résumé. You do have a résumé, right?”

“Of course I do. I’ve taught in a Montessori school for six years. I have a bachelor’s in special education, and a master’s in early childhood development,” she huffed, sounding prissy and uptight and totally unlike herself.

But she hated when people judged the book by its cover.

Sure, she was walking around in forty-year-old bell-bottoms. Sure, she was barefooted and probably wild-haired. Maybe even grass-stained, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t well-educated and intelligent.

Although . . .

She was still standing there. Right at the edge of the gravel path. She wasn’t running for her life and sanity. So, maybe the intelligence thing was in question.

“It was just a question, Ms. Truehart. Not a statement about you. No need to take offense.”

“I didn’t, but you’re busy. I’ll come back another time,” she said. Meaning never.

“The position pays well,” he countered.

“What is your definition of well?” She spun around, and he was right there. So close she could have reached out and brushed the orange flecks from his hair.

He named a figure that was just about half her monthly teaching salary.

“How long are we talking? Six months? A year?”

“Three months. If things stretch out longer, we’ll work up a new contract.”

“Things?”

“My brother and sister-in-law were in an accident a few weeks ago. He was killed. She’s in a coma. We have no idea when she’ll wake up. Or, even, if she will.”

“I’m really sorry about that,” she said, and meant it.

“Me too. My brothers and I feel that help around the house would make the transition easier for the kids. The job description is vague because we’re not sure what we’ll need. This is a working farm, and there are six kids living in that house.” He gestured at the aging farmhouse. “If you want to interview, great. If not, thanks for stopping by.”

He walked away, all smooth, graceful steps and understated masculinity.

She let him go, because, of course, she wasn’t going to do the interview. The money was great, but the job sounded extensive, and she still had Lu to worry about.

She wasn’t going to do it, but then she saw little Moise peeking out a window, face pressed up against the glass, a smudge of orange on her cheek.

Trouble wasn’t Rumer’s thing.

It wasn’t.

But, somehow, she always found herself walking straight into it.

She hitched her purse up onto her shoulder, brushed a few pieces of grass from her slacks, and followed Sullivan across the yard.