Chapter Seven
Getting six kids ready for a hospital visit had taken its toll. Rumer had rushed them home from school, signed their daily planners, looked through their assignment books, and gotten them snacks. As soon as that was done, she’d sent them to comb their hair, brush their teeth, and get ready to go.
That, of course, had meant helping kids find shoes and combs and—God help her—toothpaste lids that had fallen into sink drains. It had meant separating the twins when they got into a fight over whose toothbrush was whose, untying the knots in Moisey’s favorite laced boots, helping Twila choose just the right lip gloss and hair accessories, and ignoring Heavenly’s irritable glares and muttered curses every time she was reminded that she needed to get ready.
At some point, Rumer had convinced the tween to get moving. Heavenly had one-upped the request and taken Oya with her, claiming that if she was going to be forced to go, she might as well get the baby ready, too.
Now, nearly an hour after Operation Getting Ready to Go had commenced, Rumer was shoving herself into the only clean clothes she could find—a poodle skirt and sweater set. They’d been packed in the suitcase Minnie had dropped by on Rumer’s first day of work. There’d also been makeup, hair products, a few herbal headache cures, three romance novels, and a box of emergency chocolate.
The emergency chocolate was gone.
The rest of the stuff was sitting in the bottom of the suitcase. Aside from the 1950s getup Rumer had donned, all the clothes Minnie had brought were dumped in the hamper, most of them splattered with pig slop, baby spit-up, or good old-fashioned dirt from working on the farm.
She zipped the poodle skirt, running her hand down the front to smooth out a few wrinkles. The sweater was a little short, the bottom edge of it hitting right above the waistband of the skirt. She tugged it down as far as it would go, ran fingers through crazy-wild hair, and hoped to Heaven she didn’t look as frazzled as she felt.
She glanced in the mirror and winced. Yep. Frazzled in the extreme: hair poking out in a million different directions, light pink poodle skirt falling nearly to her ankles, one earring in and one missing.
She thought she might have lost it in the middle of the night and been walking around all day without it. Moisey had woken screaming around midnight, and she’d run downstairs to see what was wrong. The screaming had woken Oya, whose crying had woken Heavenly. Eventually, every one of the six kids was down in the kitchen having warm milk and toast.
Sullivan had been there, too, wearing dark blue pajama bottoms that clung to his lean hips. That was it. No shirt. No robe. She’d been fiddling with the darn earring, trying not to notice his lean, hard muscles, the smooth expanse of his skin, the contraction of biceps and triceps as he helped kids get toast and clean up messes.
Yeah.
She’d probably lost the earring then.
She scowled, grabbing her purse, her cell phone, and the journal she’d purchased that morning. The handmade leather-bound book contained hand-pressed paper. No lines. No margins. Just beautiful raw edges and the thick, uneven feel of pulped wood.
She’d already written in it, outlining a conversation she’d had with Moisey. The girl thought moonbeams could cure her mother’s coma, and Rumer had jotted down all the details of her theory. When Sunday woke, she’d be amused by it.
If she woke.
Sullivan had been quiet since his conversation with the hospital. She’d noticed that. Just like she’d noticed the fact that he still hadn’t shaved. Soon, he’d have a full-out beard and mustache.
He already looked sexy as heck.
That was going to be the frosting on the cake, the ice cream on the pie, the—
“Rumer!” Twila called, her voice faint but audible.
Rumer could picture her standing near the front door, holding a stopwatch and a checklist.
The kid had more organizational skills in her left pinkie than most people had in their entire bodies.
Knowing her, she’d already herded her siblings to the foyer and had them lined up by age or height or troublemaking ability. That was good, because they were leaving in T minus—Rumer glanced at her watch . . .
Now!
They were leaving now.
“Darn it,” she muttered, tossing the notebook into her bag and grabbing the baggies of snacks, the packages of crayons, and the coloring books that she’d purchased for the visit. She tossed them in with the journal, flicked off her light, and ran down the stairs.
She hit the lower landing and skidded across the wood floor, nearly slamming into the wall.
“Smooth,” Heavenly said. She was a foot away, Oya in a baby carrier strapped to her chest. Both were wearing dresses. Oya’s was a frilly teal concoction that had been paired with thick white tights and black patent-leather shoes. Heavenly’s dress skimmed her narrow frame and fell to an inch above her knees. She’d taken her hair out of cornrows and it hung around her face in glossy dark blond strands. No combat boots or holey tights. She was wearing cute ankle boots with purple laces and patterned tights that matched the dress.
“You look lovely, Heavenly,” Rumer said, both pleased and discomfited by the tween’s choice. She’d never seen her in anything other than skin-tight holey rags.
“Whatever,” she muttered, stomping to the door. “Are we going? I have stuff to do tonight.”
“Like what?” Sullivan asked, walking out of the kitchen, a sketch pad in his hand, a pencil behind his ear. He’d dressed in denim and flannel again, the T-shirt he wore beneath the flannel shirt the same bold green as his eyes.
“Homework,” Heavenly snapped, opening the door and walking outside, her siblings filing out behind her. Twila in a knee-length skirt and navy peacoat, Moisey in a wool blazer and a bright pink dress, the twins dressed in slacks and ties and suit coats.
She did a double-take at that, skimming them from the top of their combed hair to the toes of their polished shoes. Not a smudge. Not a speck of dirt. Their clothes looked freshly washed and pressed. Even Henry was wearing a suit, the gray-black rock shrouded in what looked like a Ken-doll suit coat.
“What the heck?” she muttered.
“I was wondering the same,” Sullivan responded, touching her lower spine and urging her outside.
“Did you tell them to dress up?”
“I figured you had,” he responded, his gaze on the kids. They were marching single file toward the old red van.
“I told them to brush their teeth and comb their hair. I didn’t mention clothes. I didn’t think—” She glanced at the kids. They stood next to the locked van staring somberly in her direction, listening to every word she said. “I didn’t think of how wonderful it would be if everyone dressed up for the occasion. If I had time, I’d go change into something a little fancier, then we’d all be looking our best.”
“I don’t know,” Sullivan murmured, his hand still on her back, his long stride shortened to match hers. “The outfit you’ve got on seems pretty fancy.”
“It’s a poodle skirt,” she replied, brushing her hand down the old cotton fabric. “Minnie packed it with the other things she brought over.”
“Vintage?”
“Of course, so is the sweater.” They were a matched set—pale pink poodle skirt and white mock turtleneck sweater, both soft from years of wear.
“Vintage looks good on you,” he said, and she blushed.
Blushed!
Like a middle schooler with her first crush, a high school freshman dreaming of her first kiss. Like a woman who hadn’t been hurt a dozen times before and who didn’t know that she should never risk her heart.
“Vintage looks good on anyone,” she responded.
“I really doubt that poodle skirt would look good on me.”
“Maybe you should try it, Uncle,” Twila said. “Lots of men wear skirts now. And in Ireland and Scotland, kilts are part of a long and rich cultural heritage.”
She sounded like a voice-over for a documentary, and Rumer smiled, tension she hadn’t even realized she was feeling seeping out. “You know a lot of history, Twila. Good for you.”
“Mom says that if we don’t know our history, we’re doomed to repeat it,” she replied, her dark eyes staring into Rumer’s, distracting her from the fact that Sullivan’s hand was still resting against her lower spine.
“Your mother is a very wise woman,” she replied.
“Was a very wise woman,” Heavenly cut in. “Now, she’s just a vegetable.”
“Mom isn’t a vegetable,” Moisey yelled, darting toward her sister so quickly Rumer didn’t have time to catch her.
Sullivan managed it, swooping in and lifting her away seconds before her polished boot met Heavenly’s shin.
“Cool it, kiddo,” he said gently, still holding her as he unlocked the van and opened the back door. He set her on the threadbare carpet and looked into her face, one hand cupping her chin, one cupping her shoulder. “Do you think your mom would want you kicking and hitting people every time they said something you didn’t like?”
“Heavenly says it doesn’t matter what Mom would want, since she’s going to die anyway.”
“That’s a bold-faced lie. I never said anything like that,” Heavenly snapped, her face alabaster pale, her lips nearly white. She looked stricken and a little sick, and Rumer had absolutely no doubt she was telling the truth.
“You called Mom a vegetable, and that’s the same thing.” Moisey’s voice broke and a single tear slid down her cheek.
“Well, damn. If I’d known it was going to make you cry, I wouldn’t have said it.” To her credit, Heavenly actually looked contrite.
“Language,” Sullivan said wearily, wiping the tear off Moisey’s cheek and kissing her forehead. “It’s going to be okay, Moisey.”
“Not if Mommy doesn’t come home,” she wailed.
“Is she going to?” Twila asked, her gaze on Rumer. She might be organized, she might be a great student, she might be smart, well-spoken, and polite, but there was a lot more to her than what she showed to the world. Rumer had seen little pieces of that—hints at just how savvy she was. Just how easily she could manipulate people when she wanted to.
“I don’t know,” she said honestly.
“Well, at least we know one adult in our lives tells the truth,” Heavenly huffed, stalking around to the other side of the van and yanking open the door. “Come on, dweebs. Standing around in the cold crying isn’t going to make your mother get better.”
Your mother.
As if Sunday weren’t hers, too, but her face and lips were still pale, her eyes deeply shadowed.
She looked like a kid who’d been through too much, had finally come through it, and was suddenly going through more. If Rumer could have taken her in her arms and told her that things would get better, she would have. She knew Heavenly, though. She’d been Heavenly, so she let her strap Oya into her car seat and climb into the bucket seat next to it.
The boys had already found their spots, and Twila plopped into the seat closest to the door. Moisey’s tears had stopped, and she was perched in her booster swinging her scrawny legs to her own rhythmic beat.
Sullivan slid the door closed.
“Damn,” he whispered.
“Language,” she said.
She meant it as a joke, a distraction from the heartbreak they’d witnessed.
He didn’t smile.
“I think at this point, those kids have heard it all.” He was still holding the sketch pad, and he pulled the pencil out from behind his ear and tucked it in between the pages. “This is just as hard as I thought it was going to be,” he said.
“Taking care of the kids?”
“Being a parent to them. Come on. We’d better get in the van and get on the road before all hell breaks loose again.” He walked her to her door and opened it, holding it until she was settled into the cloth seat.
“I don’t think Minnie will be happy if I slam this in the door,” he said, lifting the hem of her skirt and tucking it up near her thigh.
It should have been nothing—just a kind gesture between two people who were getting to know each other.
It was nothing, but she felt the warmth of his knuckles as they grazed her thigh and the quick rush of heat that flooded her.
God!
What was wrong with her?
She wasn’t a teenager with a glamorized idea of love and relationships. She’d had her first kiss before she turned twelve, her first real relationship when she was sixteen. She’d been with guys who’d treated her well and ones who’d been bastards. She’d been in plenty of relationships with all different kinds of men. She’d heard all the pretty words and the trite phrases, the promises and the excuses for breaking them. She sure as heck wasn’t a woman whose head could be turned by a handsome face or charming manners.
So why the heck couldn’t she stop reacting to Sullivan?
Why did every accidental touch feel like the beginning of something wonderful?
And, why was she still here? Still working for the Bradshaws? Still tempting herself to get more involved than she should? Not just with him. With the kids and with Sunday.
She could already feel it happening. She was getting drawn into the drama and the heartbreak, because that’s the way she was. She felt too deeply and loved too much. Jake had told her that repeatedly, and it hadn’t been a compliment. It had been his way of making her understand that her expectations were too high, that her needs were too many, that her clinginess was annoying.
She frowned.
She didn’t give a crap what Jake had said, but there’d been some truth to his words. If she had a fatal flaw, an Achilles’ heel, it was her need to make connections, to find commonality, to belong. A therapist friend had once told her it stemmed from her childhood. That she’d felt rejected by her mother and that had caused her to feel unloved and unlovable. She’d been searching for validation ever since then, trying to prove to herself that she was worthy of all the things her mother had denied her. It was a neat theory that tied all her romantic problems into a tidy little package, but Rumer wasn’t a child anymore. She’d stopped looking for validation more than a decade ago. She didn’t need love to feel fulfilled and she’d stopped wanting it right around the time she’d realized Jake was cheating.
“It’s the Truehart blood,” she muttered. “It’s tainted.”
“What’s that?” Sullivan said as he climbed into the driver’s seat.
“Just talking to myself,” she replied.
“Do you do that often?”
“Only when I’m trying to work out a problem.”
“What problem?” he asked.
You was on the tip of her tongue.
She refrained from saying it. “You said Sunday was out of the ICU, right?”
“Yes.”
“So, I guess that means all the kids can see her at once.” She went off on that tangent, because there was no way in heck she was going to admit the truth.
“That’s my understanding.”
“Okay. Good.”
“That’s the problem you were trying to work out?”
“One of them.”
“Want to talk about the others?”
“No.”
“I want to talk about mine,” Moisey piped up from the back, her voice clear and high and sweet.
“Should we let her?” Sullivan murmured.
“According to every child psychology class I’ve ever taken, children should be encouraged to share their feelings and their problems,” she replied.
“Do you think your professors had kids like Moisey in their lives? Because I’d say that if they did, they might not have said that.”
She laughed. “I think Moisey might be one of a kind.”
“My problem is one of a kind, too, and I still want to talk about it,” Moisey nearly shouted.
“Shhhh,” Heavenly chided. “Oya is trying to sleep.”
“If I’m quiet, they won’t be able to hear, and what I have to say is of utmost importance,” she whispered loudly.
“Utmost?” Rumer asked, her lips twitching with amusement.
“She’s been watching documentaries with me when she can’t sleep,” Sullivan explained. “Lots of British history and people saying things like ‘utmost importance.’”
“She is a little sponge, that’s for sure.” She’d noticed it from the beginning. Moisey had a good imagination and a quick mind. As great an asset as that was, it could also be a challenge. Kids like her needed their minds and their bodies occupied. Rumer had been trying. God knew she had—all kinds of outside activities. No matter how cold, how wet, how muddy, she’d pick the kids up from school and take them on walks, point out things on the farm that needed doing, and then put them to work doing it.
And, still Moisey’s high-powered brain was working overtime, keeping her up at night, waking her when she finally fell asleep. She had a million questions. Not just about her mother but about life: How did the robins know that spring was coming? Why did the sky look blue some mornings and purple others? Why did Tommy Fletcher say that family could only be blood relatives? And, was it okay to punch him in the nose for it?
The questions went on and on and on. As fast as Rumer and Sullivan answered one, another pressing question was there.
Smart as a whip and extremely likable. That’s how Moisey’s teacher described her.
They’d also called her precocious. Teacher code, Rumer knew, for a handful.
“Hello?!” Moisey called again. “Does no one care about my problem?”
“I care,” Rumer replied, shifting in her seat so that she could face the little girl. “What do you want to discuss?”
“It’s cloudy.” She waved toward the horizon and the steel-gray sky.
“Are you afraid it’s going to rain?”
“I’m afraid the moon will be hidden.”
Uh-oh. Here they went. Her newest obsession.
“Moisey,” Sullivan said as he shoved the key in the ignition and started the van. “We’ve talked about this.”
“You talked,” she corrected.
“We talked, and you agreed that the moon wasn’t going to help your mother get better. How about we don’t stir this pot anymore? Especially not in front of your siblings. They’re impressionable, and they might start believing something that isn’t true.”
Moisey’s chin jutted out and her eyes flashed, but she didn’t say a word.
In Rumer’s estimation that was way worse than her throwing a raging fit. When she was quiet, she was plotting. When she plotted, things happened. Like poor Tommy who’d ended up with his pants glued to his chair. Or Bessie who’d been forced into a straw hat, a bow tie strung around her nonexistent hog neck.
“Okay, Moisey?” Sullivan prodded.
“Yeah. Whatever,” Moisey said, sounding almost exactly like her oldest sister.
Then, she turned and stared out the side window, shut off and silent and as unanimated as Rumer had ever seen her.
“Honey,” Rumer said. “Who told you the moon would help your mother wake up?” She’d asked the question before, and she’d gotten some cockamamie story about a fairy flying in the window at night and whispering the secret in Moisey’s ear.
“I already told you,” Moisey said, crossing her arms over her chest, fierce in her determination to keep the secret.
“How about you tell me again?”
“A fairy—”
“How about you tell me the truth?” She cut her off, and Moisey looked straight into her eyes. She was still the little girl that Rumer had almost run over, her arms skinny, her bones tiny, but she looked wizened and old, her cheekbones gaunt, her eyes haunted.
“I dreamed it,” she said, and Rumer knew it was the absolute truth.
“Dreams aren’t real,” Twila said, reaching for Moisey’s hand. “Don’t be afraid.”
“I’m not afraid, and this dream is real. I know it is. The moon will come out and shine right on her face, and Mommy will wake up. Just like I saw.” She spoke earnestly, her attention on her sister.
Their fingers were twined together, their heads bent close—smooth black hair and shiny afro touching as they whispered secrets to each other. They’d painted their nails. Rumer hadn’t noticed that—pink and sparkly. There were dabs of it on Moisey’s fingers and tiny lines of it on Twila’s wrist, and the connection between them, the fondness and love and affection, was as real as the dark clouds, the bumpy driveway, the day that was just turning dark with evening.
“Whatever happens,” she murmured as she turned around, “they have to stay together.”
“I know,” Sullivan said simply.
That was it.
No explanation of how he planned to make that happen or who would be responsible for taking on the six siblings. Someone would have to. Even if Sunday woke, even if she was able to return home, it could be years before she was able to care for her children alone.
“I guess you and your brothers have worked that out,” she said, because she couldn’t leave it alone. Just like always, she had to stick her nose in deeper than was necessary, get herself more involved than she needed to.
“We’re going to discuss things this weekend.” He pulled onto the main road, the van coughing black exhaust from its muffler. She could see it in the side mirror, puffing out in a cloud behind them.
“That will be good timing,” she said, hanging onto the door as the van bounced over a rut. “The kids and I will leave for the homestead around five.”
“In the morning?” Heavenly asked, because of course, she was listening. They all were.
“We start chores at six. You’ll want to eat before then, so we’ll make pancakes and sausage first.”
“Yum!” Milo said. “Did you hear that, Henry? Pancakes and sausage!”
“Stop talking to your stupid rock,” Heavenly snapped.
“He’s not stupid,” Maddox replied, a hint of warning in his voice.
Rumer expected Heavenly to step right into that.
She was prepared to intervene and cut off the argument before it grew into a war.
“I didn’t say he was stupid. I said his rock was.”
“My rock isn’t stupid,” Milo asserted.
“Okay. Fine. It’s not stupid. It’s deaf, though, so it can’t hear a word you’re saying.” Heavenly’s voice had taken on the gentle tone she used with Oya. A surprise since she usually either growled or snapped her responses to the boys.
“Rocks don’t need ears, Heavenly,” Milo said, and then he went on a long-winded explanation of the way his pet could absorb noise.
Rumer listened with half an ear, her brain spinning off into other directions.
She was worried about what they’d find at the hospital, worried that Sunday was as unresponsive as doctors had led Sullivan to believe. She was worried about the kids’ reaction to seeing their mother with nothing but stubble for hair, the wound from her surgery clearly visible.
“Whatever you’re worrying about, don’t,” Sullivan said so quietly she almost didn’t hear.
“Who says I’m worrying?”
“You’re biting your lip,” he responded. “And you’re gouging holes in your palms.”
He touched her hand, and she realized he was right. That she’d clenched her fists so tightly, her nails had dug holes in her palms.
She forced herself to relax, to unclench her fingers and let her hands lie lax in her lap.
He lifted one of them, his eyes on the road, his left hand on the steering wheel, his right thumb rubbing at the purplish marks.
And, God!
Every muscle in her body relaxed, every bit of worry fled from her head. She wasn’t thinking about Sunday, about the kids, about the hospital visit or the future. She was thinking about the heat that was pulsing through her, the longing that made her want to curve her fingers through his, let their joined hands rest on the seat between them. Linked for however long it took to get to the hospital. When he set her hand down again, she told herself she was relieved.
Because, she should be, she wanted to be.
But, of course, she wasn’t.
Which sucked, because she might be tired and frazzled, she might spend half of every day wondering what she’d gotten herself into, but she loved working with the Bradshaw kids.
There.
She’d said it.
She loved working with them. She loved listening to Moisey’s crazy theories and Twila’s spouted facts. She loved seeing glimpses of a sweeter and kinder version of Heavenly. She loved watching Milo take care of his pet rock and listening to Maddox defend his brother’s odd choices. She loved taking long walks with Oya strapped into a carrier on her back.
She didn’t want to have to give it all up because she loved being around Sullivan.
Which she did.
She could admit that.
She loved listening to him talk about his research project, she loved seeing him with Moisey, watching the way his calm approach always soothed the little girl’s tears. She loved the gentle way he responded to the kids’ crazy antics.
She loved how he tried, because a lot of people would have already called it quits.
But, she wasn’t going to love him.
Ever.
Period. End of discussion.
“So there,” she muttered.
“More problems?” Sullivan asked, glancing her way, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth, that damn dimple flashing in his cheek.
“Already solved,” she replied, and she meant it.
She did.
* * *
The hospital visit wasn’t the chaotic nightmare Sullivan had been preparing for. Sunday looked . . . good. Peach-fuzz hair covering her scalp, the staples partially hidden by pillows someone had piled behind her head. She’d been breathing on her own since the day after surgery. The heart monitor had been removed, the machines rolled away. She was attached to nothing but an IV pole and a pulse oximeter that measured her oxygen level and pulse rate.
Thanks to Rumer’s planning, the kids were occupied. That kept them from asking hard questions and demanding truthful answers. Currently, they were hanging artwork from a corkboard near the door. Even Oya had colored a picture, her chubby fists wrapped around one of the giant crayons Rumer had pulled from her bag.
Moisey had called the bag magical.
Maybe it was. So far, Rumer had taken snacks, coloring books, sheets of construction paper, and safety scissors out of its depths.
“Is there anything you can’t fit in there?” he asked as she took a container of baby food, a bib, and a spoon from the bag’s front pocket.
“The kitchen sink,” she responded, not meeting his eyes.
Odd. Because, Rumer was a straight shooter. She faced people head-on, looking right into their eyes and speaking her mind.
He’d noticed that about her.
He’d noticed a lot of things. Like how she’d thrown herself into the job, no holding back, no setting boundaries. No demanding space or time off.
It seemed odd that she was suddenly avoiding his eyes, pretending to be too busy to glance his way.
“What’s wrong?” he asked as she spooned orange mush into Oya’s mouth.
“Why would you think something was?” She sidestepped the question, which was a hell of a lot better than a lie.
“Because you’re avoiding me,” he responded. He was a straight shooter too. He didn’t have the time or the patience to be anything else.
“I’m sitting six inches away from you. I wouldn’t exactly call that avoidance.”
“You haven’t said more than ten words to me since we got here, you’re doing everything in your power to not look me in the eyes, and every time you get a chance you scoot that chair a little farther away. If that’s not avoiding, what would you call it?”
She sighed, spooning more mush into Oya’s mouth and pulling a small pack of baby wipes from her purse. “Self-preservation.”
“Want to explain?”
She looked up from the wipe she was yanking from the pack, met his eyes. “No.”
“Then, how about I take a guess?” he said, and she frowned.
“How about you don’t?”
“I make you uncomfortable.”
“No. You don’t.”
“Okay. I’ll rephrase that. The way you feel when you’re around me makes you uncomfortable.”
“This subject is not open for discussion.”
“I don’t see why not.”
“Because we’re in a roomful of kids who have big ears and bigger mouths. Yesterday, one of Milo’s teachers heard him tell someone that we were living together.”
“We are living together,” he pointed out, and she scowled.
“I’m your live-in help.”
“And?”
“I don’t want people thinking anything different.”
“Funny, I didn’t take you for a person who cared much about what other people thought.”
“What would make you think that?”
“You’re wearing a poodle skirt,” he pointed out.
She eyed him for a moment, a spoonful of mush hovering an inch from Oya’s mouth.
She glanced at her skirt, probably taking in the pale-pink fabric and the black poodle applique. Maybe also noticing her shoes—old-fashioned snow boots with faux fur trim and pom-pom tassels on the front zippers.
The outfit made a statement, and it sure as hell wasn’t I care what you think about my personal choices.
Slowly the scowl fell away and her lips curved, her eyes crinkling in amusement. “You have a point, Sullivan.”
“So do you,” he admitted. “We’ll drop the discussion.”
For now.
“Thanks.” She fed Oya the last bite of food and tossed the empty container in a recycle bin under the sink, the baby perched on her hip. Towheaded chubby-cheeked baby. Curly haired earth mother. His fingers itched to sketch them, to capture the way Oya’s fingers tangled in Rumer’s hair, the curve of her chubby cheeks and dimpled knuckles. Rumer’s soft smile, the lean muscles of her arms and shoulders pressing against soft ivory fabric. The hint of creamy skin between skirt and top.
His gaze lingered there, and she must have noticed.
She tugged her sweater back into place, a hint of color in her cheeks as she turned away, focused her attention on the artwork the kids were hanging.
“You guys are doing a great job,” she said, her voice a little too loud and a little too bright.
He did make her nervous.
And, he should have just let that be whatever it was.
If she’d been anyone else, he probably would have. After all, she didn’t have to be comfortable around him. She just had to do her job. But, there was something about her that he couldn’t resist. Something that made him study her face when he should have been working. That made him want to see her smile, hear her laugh, watch as she taught Maddox how to set a fence post or Twila how to pull wild onions from the ground near the edge of the property. Every day, he’d watch from the window as she took all six kids for after-school treasure hunts. They’d come back with robin eggshells and pond fronds, tiny wildflowers and smiles.
At night, he’d sketch them from memory when he should have been sleeping, his fingers flying across the paper, the sure strokes of the pencil tracing jawlines and scuffed shoes, holey jeans and those elusive smiles.
“What time is it?” Moisey asked anxiously, probably still thinking about the moon, calculating what time she should open the curtains and try to let its light in the room.
He didn’t have the heart to tell her that the window faced another building or that there was about as much chance of her seeing the moon from it as there was for a moonbeam to wake her mother up.
“Seven,” he responded, and realized Rumer had turned to face him again, her silvery-blue eyes staring straight into his.
She was trying to convey a message, but he’d never been good at reading minds, so he stood, crossing the room and leaning close as he whispered, “What?”
“She’s memorized a month’s worth of moonrise charts,” she whispered back.
“I didn’t realize there was such a thing.”
“There is, and she memorized it.”
“And?”
“The moon rose an hour ago.”
“Da . . . rn,” he said, snagging the back of Moisey’s dress as she darted past.
“Let me go! I’ve got to open the curtains.”
“I have to tell you something, kiddo.” He didn’t release his hold, and she yanked at his arm with such futile fury, he could swear he felt his heart break.
“Moisey,” he said, and maybe she heard his sadness. Maybe she understood what he was trying to say, because she stopped fighting and tugging and looked up into his face.
“You said she’d get better,” she accused, every word dripping with venom. “The very first night when Daddy died and I was crying, you told me she’d come home.”
He had.
“I know.”
“You lied. You’re just a liar. That’s the whole problem! You always lie!” She was nearly shouting now, her words echoing in the suddenly silent room.
Rumer was crouching beside her, trying to pull her in for a hug, but Moisey wanted none of it. None of them, and Sullivan was helpless, the wretch of a parent he’d known he would be—answerless, motionless—as Moisey yanked back one more time, her pretty little dress tearing. He let go of the torn fabric, feeling like the failure he knew he was.
She was crying. Not just a couple of tears, harsh horrible sobs that stabbed him right in the heart that he would have sworn a few weeks ago was impervious to pain.
She ran to the curtains and dragged them open, staring out at the brick wall that blocked everything from view.
Then, she whirled around, barreling toward him fists up, arms swinging.
“Liar!” she yelled, and the next thing he knew, he was lifting her—all her scrawny-armed punches and boot-footed kicks—and she just kind of melted against him, her soft curls against his neck, her arms around his shoulders, her hands clutching his jacket.
“What are we going to do, Uncle Sully?” she sobbed. “What are we ever going to do without her?”
And, he finally understood, he finally got it. He finally knew why Matt and Sunday had taken in kids no one wanted, traveled to Africa and to China to bring home the homeless, why they’d filed paperwork and exposed their lives to social workers and strangers. He finally understood that kind of love, because he felt it. Felt the overwhelming need to slay dragons and right wrongs, to protect Moisey’s tender heart and her fighting spirit.
“Whatever happens,” he whispered so only she could hear, “it’s going to be okay.”
“Promise?” she asked, leaning back and cupping his face, staring straight into his eyes.
“Promise,” he responded.
“Uncle Sullivan,” Heavenly said, breaking the silence and calling him by name for the first time ever.
Surprised, he glanced her way, realized that she was standing near the bed, looking down at Sunday.
“What . . . ?” His voice trailed off as he saw what she did, realized what she had.
Sunday’s eyes were open.
They weren’t just open. They were focused. On him. On Moisey.
Shocked, he set Moisey down, crossed the room, bent so he was looking straight into her eyes.
“Sunday?” he said, but she wasn’t looking at him anymore. She was looking at Heavenly, a frown line creasing her brow.
“Don’t cry, honey,” she said, the words raspy and rough and barely intelligible.
He heard them, though.
He understood them, and he was reaching for the call button to call the nurse as Heavenly turned and ran from the room.