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“What? Did you expect me to hang around, bump into Skip and then throw out a welcome mat?” Her eyes narrowed. “God, Mother. You did.” Addie opened the truck’s door. She couldn’t get away from this conversation fast enough.
“You’ll be teaching at the same school,” Charmaine pointed out.
“Which I do not look forward to.”
“Why don’t you try breaking the ice first? Maybe talking to him will help with the issues you’ve kept inside.”
“Issues? When Dad pushed me to sign those papers, I wanted to die. Die, do you understand?” Issues, indeed.
“M-M-Mommy,” Michaela called anxiously from inside the truck.
“Look, I’ll see you later.”
Charmaine hurried forward. “What’re you going to do about—”
“Absolutely nothing. The man means zilch to me.” She got in, turned the ignition—and left her mother in the driveway.
Nothing, zilch, nada. Remember that, Addie.
Skip Dalton was a pebble in the road of her life. Easily kicked aside. Then why are you so annoyed? And worried.
Chapter Two
The following Monday, Skip drove his Toyota pickup down the wooded driveway leading to his new home and parked beside his Prius. Yesterday, the movers had brought all the furniture; today he and Becky would arrange and unpack the boxes.
Standing in the morning sunshine, he grinned across the truck’s hood. “Well, Bean. This is it. This is home now.” Skip hoped the girl would like the house, the island, the school she’d be attending after the Labor Day weekend in a few weeks. He watched her gaze at the structure gleaming in the morning light, her mouth slightly open, eyes as round as pizzas.
“It’s amazing. I’ve never been in a house this big. Is it just for us?”
“Just us.” For now. He couldn’t predict the future, but he hoped he and the lady across the road could eventually become friends for Becky’s sake. After that…who knew?
“Look,” he said, embarrassed suddenly by her awe. It was, after all, just a house. One of three he owned, and not the biggest. “If you want to scout around, I’ll start inside. Come in when you’re ready.”
Her expression was grateful. “I’d like that. It’s so quiet here. I never realized it, but I like the sound of…”
“Nature?”
“Yeah.” The word blew out on a little huff as she observed an American goldfinch pick at the bark of an old Garry oak in the front yard.
Skip smiled. “The island may be small, honey, and a good portion may have burned to ashes in 1892, but it’s all grown back, including the wildlife, so enjoy it.” Happy to let her explore the premises, he walked up the porch steps to open the front door.
For the first time in over a decade he had come home.
Becky wandered around the property. The air was so fresh and clean and the trees were incredibly green and grand and gorgeous. As if she stood in Narnia during summertime.
She wanted to pinch herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. Was it only ten months ago that her dad found her?
It seemed like yesterday. And forever.
Man, her real dad…
He was so cool. Kind and patient and just plain nice. And he occasionally called her Bean ’cause she was growing like a bean sprout, he said. When she thought of her other dad…Skip was so different than…him.
She was glad Jesse, as she’d begun to think of him, was in the Walla Walla prison. She swallowed back the ache in her throat at the thought of her mom. Becky couldn’t believe she’d been gone almost four years. She tried to picture the woman she’d loved so much.
Mom, with her soft blond hair and sweet smile.
Mom, reading to her just before bedtime.
Mom, helping with her homework.
The images swam across Becky’s mind…Except her mom seemed hazy, the way a person looked standing in a really thick fog. And when she tried to remember her mother’s voice, there was nothing, not a single word.
Maybe it was best this way. Maybe forgetting her mom’s face would help her forget the horror of that day.
She swung around and realized she’d almost walked into the forest. Jeez, Becks. Focus on this life. Your new life. Don’t think of then.
Hurrying to the front yard, Becky saw the road they’d traveled coming from the village. Across it, up a long dirt trail was a green cottage, and on its stoop sat a child.
They had to be the neighbors. Maybe the family had kids her age. Like one of the girls she’d met last week at the retirement ceremony.
Eager to begin new friendships, Becky walked down her dad’s driveway and across the road.
“Hi,” she called as she went up their lane.
The kid wore a pink top and shorts. Above each ear was a dark pigtail that hung down her skinny arms. She looked about six or seven. And a little scared. As she got closer, Becky said, “I’m Becky, your new neighbor.”
The girl had big brown eyes. Her mouth worked, but nothing came out. Becky plopped on the stoop next to a row of Barbie dolls.
“Hey.” She picked up a queenlike version. “I had a Princess Barbie a long time ago. But then my mom died and I had to move and I lost Princess.” Becky rocked the doll, humming a little tune. The child gave her the sweetest smile she’d ever seen.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“M-M-Michaela.”
Becky acted as if she heard stuttering all the time. “Pretty name.”
The kid’s smile showed two missing front teeth. “M-M-Mommy n’ me are g-g-gonna check the b-b-bees. Wanna c-c-come?”
Bees? Becky looked around. “There’s a hive somewhere?”
“Uh-huh. Mom s-s-sells the honey.”
“Ohhh. You mean, she has those white bee boxes?”
Sunshine dipped into the girl’s eyes, making them as gold as honey. “I can…ask…Mom…if you…can…come see them.”
“Hey, that’d be cool.”
The door behind them opened. “Michaela?” A skinny woman in jeans and blue t-shirt looked down at them.
The child scrambled up to grab the woman’s hand. “Mom, this is B-B-Becky. She’s our n-n-neighbor.” She pointed. “Over there.”
Becky got to her feet. “I didn’t mean to trespass, ma’am.”
“You didn’t.” The woman had a soft voice. Her hand stroked her daughter’s curly pigtails and for a second Becky remembered her own mother’s fingers sifting through her hair in the same way.
“B-B-Becky likes Princess best, j-j-just l-l-like me.”
“Slow down, button.”
Becky smiled. “I get nervous meeting new people, too.”
The alertness in the woman’s face eased. “I’m Addie Malloy.”
“I’m Becky Dalton.”
Ms. Malloy’s eyebrows crashed. “You’re Skip Dalton’s daughter?”
“Yes.” Was that bad? “Do you know him?”
The woman stared at her for so long Becky shuffled her feet. Then Ms. Malloy looked toward their house and her eyes got really cold. “Yeah,” she said. “I know Mr. Dalton.”
Oh, man. Their neighbor didn’t like her dad. Why? She started to back away. Had she heard about her past? Becky wondered. No, her dad would never tell. “I should go. My dad’s probably wondering where I am. It was really nice meeting you. ’Bye, Mick.”
“It’s Michaela.” Frost hung in the woman’s voice. “She doesn’t like Mick.”
“Oops.” Becky couldn’t stop a nervous giggle. “Sorry.” Leaving the pair standing on the sunny stoop, she hurried down the path among the trees.
Sheesh. Wasn’t that always the way? A cute kid with a mean mother…Poor girl. Becky knew what it was like to live with a parent who wasn’t kind or friendly. Yet, Ms. Malloy had seemed kind, patting the girl’s hair. But maybe that was for show. Maybe she was why Michaela stuttered. Maybe the girl was dying for friends, but Ms. Malloy didn’t want people hanging around. Becky peeked over her shoulder.
The steps were empty.
She broke into a run.
Skip put his shoulder into the shove that slid his sleigh bed into place. He wanted the bed facing the windows across the hardwood. That way, first thing every morning he’d look straight into the stand of evergreens circling his property. Almost done with arranging the bedroom furniture, he heard the front door open.
“Dad?”
Dad. A shiver darted through Skip. He still had a hard time accepting how easily his daughter had taken to him. Twelve years she’d been under someone else’s care. His own flesh and blood. What an idiot he’d been to allow such a precious commodity to be handed over to strangers. What had he been thinking to listen to his father’s rants about one-in-a-million chances and how Skip needed to stop feeling sorry for something that wasn’t his fault?
Except it had been his fault. He’d been nineteen, Addie only seventeen when he’d gotten her pregnant that Christmas. Much as he hated the truth, he had forfeited his child for a mere chance. He could push the blame onto his father until the cows came home, but the fact was, at the end of the day, he’d made the choice.
If he could erase the past, if he could just begin again, give Becky a new childhood, one with him and possibly Addie…
All the ifs in the world won’t change a damn thing, Skip.
“Dad?” She thundered up the stairs.
“In here, Bean,” he called. He started the nickname within days of seeing her for the first time, a tall, gangly girl with his dark hair and long, narrow feet.
She flung around the doorjamb, her cheeks flushed. “I met the neighbors across the road. Ms. Malloy and her girl, Michaela.”
Ah, hell. Skip crossed the room. “Becky, next time let me know before you leave the property, okay?”
“Why? Is there something wrong with them?” She cut a glance toward the window.
“No.” Only thirteen years of abandonment by him. “We live in the country and I’d rather you didn’t go somewhere without telling me.” He tried to soften his anxiety with a smile. “It’ll keep me from worrying.”
“Jesse never cared where I went.”
Jesse Farmer, her adopted dad. “I’m not Jesse, honey.” He brushed the too-long bangs from her eyes. “Look, I’m still learning the family thing, so bear with me, okay? If I’m a little paranoid it just means I need to know you’re okay.” That no one is hurting you anymore.
With a shrug she wandered to his clothing boxes stacked near the closet’s open door. Peering inside, she said, “I don’t think we’ll be friends with them anyway.”
“No?”
“Ms. Malloy isn’t…very friendly.”
“In what way?” Had Addie slammed the door in Becky’s face?
Another shrug. “She seems…uptight. Maybe it’s because her daughter stutters and stuff.”
He’d heard about Addie having another child, one from the man she divorced seven months ago.
“How do you know she stutters?”
“She was sitting on their front step when I went over, and we were chatting about her dolls when the mom came outside.”
“Oh.”
Becky looked over her shoulder. “The little girl’s really cute—and shy. And she has these big brown eyes. I think her mom is overprotective because of the way she talks.” Suddenly, her face brightened. “Hey, maybe we can ask them over for dinner in a couple days and—”
“Whoa, whoa.” Skip brought up his hands. “Let’s take it one day at a time, Bean. We’ve got a lot to do around here first.” Primarily, he needed to get reacquainted with the lady in question.
“How about we wait a few days, see where we’re at with the unpacking.” He inclined his head toward the door. “You haven’t even checked out your room yet.”
Which told him how much neighbors and friends meant to his daughter. The “friends” she’d had in the trailer park in Lynnwood—where her family had lived—Skip wished she’d never met.
Becky rushed into the hallway, bent on her assignment. “Which room is mine?”
He leaned in the doorway. “There are four, so take your pick.”
“I can? No way!”
He watched her dash into each, listened to her “oohs” and “aahs” as she toured their confines, until in the last and farthest from his room, he heard, “This one! I’m picking this one.”
He was grinning when she poked her head from the doorway. “Is that okay?”
