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Kaylee forced herself to smile even though the starkness of the picture struck her. There was no Dawn, no Monica, no Aunt Lilly, no Grandpa Paul, no father—and no background. She and Joey existed in a vacuum against a backdrop of stark white. She searched for something positive to say.
“Is my little boy really this big already?” She tapped the picture he’d drawn of himself. His head was level with her shoulder, the size of a boy twice his age.
He rolled his eyes and affected a grown-up tone. “I’m already six years old.”
“Yes, you are.” She smiled tenderly, because he was growing up far too fast. “Mind if I put your picture up on the fridge?”
He shook his head, and she fastened the drawing to the refrigerator with a colorful magnet he’d painted in art class and given her for Mother’s Day. It joined a gallery that included a yellow dinosaur, a purple puppy and a mystery animal with the body of a dachshund and the head of an eagle.
“Can I turn on the TV?” Joey asked.
“Go ahead, honey. But just till dinner.”
Trying not to sigh, Kaylee took the pack of fish sticks from the freezer and popped eight of the frozen sticks into the oven. Then she set a pot of water to boil and found a box of macaroni and cheese in the lazy Susan.
Betty Crocker, she was not. But then she’d never paid attention when her mother tried to teach her to cook. She’d never even made a lunch to bring to school. Her mother had done that for her until high school, when she preferred to eat as little as possible and pocket the rest of the money for more important things. Like an occasional joint or the wine and beer she could talk an older friend into buying for her.
She dumped the macaroni into the boiling water, listening with half an ear to make sure the cartoon Joey had turned on wasn’t geared for adults.
The irony of her life of responsibility didn’t escape her. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d smoked a joint, and she barely touched alcohol. She, who’d reveled in the wrong things, was determined to set an example for her son by doing the right ones.
While she waited for the macaroni to cook, she separated her mail into two stacks. Bills in one, junk mail in another. She was almost through sorting when the phone rang.
“Kaylee, it’s Lilly.” Her younger sister’s drawling voice, rich with the sound of Texas, came over the line.
“Lilly!” Younger than Kaylee by six years, Lilly lived at home with their father while finishing her sophomore year at Houston Community College. “How’s college? Are you through with the semester yet?”
“Almost. It’s exam week, and I can’t wait for it to be over. Do you know how much you have to study in college?”
Kaylee barely stopped herself from lecturing her sister on the importance of a college education. Lilly was still young enough not to listen to reason, even if it came from somebody with first-hand knowledge of how hard it was to make ends meet without higher education. “What are you going to do this summer?”
“Same thing I do every summer. Work on my tan while lifeguarding at the community center,” she said. “Listen. I can’t talk long because I’m meeting a friend for dinner, but I wanted to let you know that Dad said you and Joey are welcome here.”
Kaylee’s jaw tensed. If her father really wanted her and Joey in his house, wouldn’t he have called her back himself? “Did he offer, Lilly? Or did you talk him into it?”
The pause at the other end of the line was too lengthy to be meaningless. “Don’t be silly, Kaylee. You know Dad. He’s always been there for us.”
Lilly’s statement wasn’t entirely accurate. Paul Carter was a dependable, hardworking plumber who’d ably supported the family. But he hadn’t cared enough to intercede in the stormy arguments Kaylee had with her mother. Neither had he come after Kaylee when she’d run away to Florida. And he still hadn’t seen his grandson.
To be fair, her father always sprang for Lilly’s plane ticket when her sister visited them. Lilly relayed that he’d pay for their plane tickets if Kaylee and Joey wanted to visit them in Houston, but Kaylee hadn’t asked and he hadn’t offered himself.
“Let us know when you’re coming, okay?” Lilly said. “I’ve got to run.”
Kaylee hung up the phone, more unsure than ever that she and Joey should go to Houston.
But she had to decide something soon. Her meager savings were dwindling rapidly. Her father would probably help her out, but she hadn’t once asked him for money in six years and didn’t intend to start now. If not for Joey, she’d never have asked if they could stay at his house temporarily.
She went back to sorting the mail, stopping abruptly when she came across a letter from the Florida Parole Commission. A lump of unease clogged her throat. Not bothering with her letter opener, Kaylee ripped open the envelope, pulled out a single sheet of white paper and read the bad news.
A hearing had been scheduled that could result in Rusty Collier being granted parole. The hearing was next week.
Short fingers pulled at her skirt. “Mommy, what’s wrong?”
She stared down at Joey’s dear, little face and tried to think. Even if Rusty did get parole, it didn’t mean he would try to find them. He’d only contacted her twice since Joey had been born, then had given up when she’d asked him to stop calling.
But the very possibility that he might track them down was one more strike against Houston. Never mind that the terms of Rusty’s parole would prohibit him from leaving Florida.
“Nothing’s wrong, honey.” She got down on her haunches and looked into his eyes. “But I have a surprise for you.”
Joey brightened. “M&M’s? A Matchbox car?”
She smoothed the baby-fine hair back from his forehead. It was an unusual shade. Lighter than brown but darker than blond. On more than one occasion, she’d heard it described as rust-colored. Like the hair of the man who’d fathered him.
“Not that kind of a surprise. A bigger one. We’re going to have an adventure.”
“Like Winnie the Pooh?”
A wave of love swept over her like a warm wind. She nodded, glad that Joey didn’t yet consider the beloved character beneath his new maturity level. “Exactly like that. Is there a story called Winnie the Pooh and theMove?”
Skepticism replaced the eagerness on Joey’s face. He shook his head.
“Well, imagine if there were such a story. Imagine if Winnie and Tigger and Christopher Robin moved.”
“In the Hundred Acre Wood?”
“No. Somewhere else. Somewhere better.” Ignoring his continued skepticism, she kept on talking. “It’ll be fun. First we’ll pack up everything, and then we’ll get in the car, just you and me. We’ll drive away from Florida and start over someplace else.”
“When?”
“Soon. Maybe even the day after tomorrow.”
Worry lines appeared between his brows. “How ’bout school?”
Kaylee hadn’t thought of that and did some quick mental calculations. It was mid-May. The last day of school wasn’t even two weeks away. “School’s almost out for the summer, honey. It won’t matter if you finish a couple days early.”
Although Joey didn’t frown, he didn’t smile, either. “Where?”
The lush countryside that had charmed her from the television broadcast played like a travelogue through her mind. She imagined Sofia Donatelli standing among the blooming apple trees, beckoning to her with a smile and a bent finger, and made her decision.
“We’re going to Ohio. A place called McIntosh.”
CHAPTER THREE
MCINTOSH WAS all Kaylee had imagined it would be. The gently sloping hills. The trees bursting with spring color. The open spaces. The crisp blue skies with the promise of summer in the warming air.
Everything would have been perfect if only she had a job, child care and a place to live. Friends in town would have been nice. Family would have been better.
If she hadn’t panicked when she’d gotten that letter from the Florida Parole Commission, she would have formulated a better plan.
At eighteen, she’d thought it exciting to leave home for the unknown. But packing Joey and everything they owned into her car and heading for Ohio hadn’t felt like an adventure. It felt like a risk.
She’d temporarily taken care of housing by getting a room at a hotel on the edge of town, but the most that could be said for it was that it was clean.
Before they could look for a more permanent place to live, she had to find work. And she needed to do it with a six-year-old in tow because there was nobody she could ask to babysit.
She pulled into a parking space on the appropriately named Main Street and got out of the car with Joey, feeling as though she’d been plopped down in the middle of a storybook.
A recent rain had wiped everything clean, causing the spring hues to seem more vibrant. The street was awash with color, the white clouds puffy overhead in a cerulean sky. They walked up a slight hill past a beauty shop, a bookstore, a general store and a shoe-repair shop while she searched for an address.
“Hey, Mom.” Joey pointed a forefinger at a tall tree that sported a profusion of tiny, red flowers against its smooth gray bark. “That tree looks like it has chicken pox.”
“Yeah, sport,” she said. “It does.”
The trees were almost always green in South Florida, the temperature forever warm, the traffic always busy. McIntosh was a welcome change. Thirty seconds could pass before a car went by, but the sidewalks, though not busy, were far from empty.
“Look at that.” Joey sprang away from her, ran to the base of the tree and scooped up something. He came back to her side holding a very small squirming toad covered with warts. “Isn’t he cool?”
She backed up a step. “You better put him down. He’ll give you warts.”
“They said on TV that’s a mitt.”
“A myth,” she corrected. “But even if he won’t give you warts, he looks like a baby. You better let him go so he can find his mother.”
He rolled his eyes. “He was hatched from an egg.”
Kids who watched nature shows on TV were tougher to manipulate, Kaylee thought. “Just let him go, Joey.”
Joey groaned but turned away from her and scooted down. An elderly man who was passing by met Kaylee’s eye and greeted her, something else she wasn’t used to.
She and Joey continued walking until she found the address for Sandusky’s, a small grocery store with a full-service butcher shop. The clerk at the hotel had told her that the store was looking for a cashier.
“Now remember what we talked about, Joey.” She bent down to his level. “You need to be quiet while I’m talking to the people about a job.”
Joey kept by her side while she found a clerk and asked to speak to the owner. He appeared from the back of the shop a few moments later wearing a white butcher’s apron that didn’t detract from his appeal.
If she’d been twenty years older, she would have looked more than once. He had thick brown hair, pleasant features, kind hazel eyes and a nice smile. “I’m Art Sandusky. Can I help you?”
“Hi,” she said brightly. “My name’s Kaylee Carter, and I’m here about the cashier’s job you advertised in the McIntosh Weekly.”
A tremendous crash from the next aisle interrupted whatever he’d been about to say. His brows drew together. “I wonder what that was.”
Kaylee looked wildly about for Joey, didn’t find him and had a pretty good guess. Together she and Art Sandusky rounded the corner of the next aisle. Her son stood beside broken pickle jars and a young girl in an apron. The smell of dill and vinegar was nearly overpowering.
“What happened?” Art Sandusky asked.
“The kid asked me if I wanted to see something cool. Then he reached in his pocket and pulled out a toad.” The girl shuddered. “It jumped on me.”
“It didn’t mean nothing by it,” Joey said. The toad leaped into view and Joey scrambled away in pursuit.
The job hunt didn’t go much better after that. Art Sandusky was a doll about the breakage, insisting it had been an accident and refusing to accept payment. But he’d also hired a cashier three days ago.
Kaylee’s next stop was a deli-style restaurant that hadn’t advertised for help and turned out not to need any. The owner probably wouldn’t have hired her anyway after Joey bumped into a waiter carrying a tray of drinks. Two customers got drenched, but Joey came away dry as desert sand.
“Do you know of anyplace else that might be looking?” she asked the tired-looking man who emerged from the kitchen to clean up the mess.
“You might try Nunzio’s,” he said as he swished the mop back and forth. “It’s the only other restaurant in town with table service.”
Kaylee’s palms grew damp and her heart sped up. Her impulse had been to make Nunzio’s her first stop, but she’d deliberately steered clear of the restaurant where Sofia Donatelli had once worked.
Getting established before confronting Sofia had seemed like the smartest plan, but now she needed to be a realist. She couldn’t stay in McIntosh for long without a job. Applying for a waitress job at Nunzio’s made perfect sense.
Her heart raced when she grabbed her son’s hand, because every step she took brought her closer to the woman who could be her mother.
“C’mon, Joe-Joe,” Kaylee said. “We’re going to Nunzio’s.”
ANOTHER DAY, another impostor. This one had brought her son along.
Tony saw her as soon as he entered Nunzio’s, the most logical place in McIntosh to meet with a stranger. The place not only smelled wonderful—a mouthwatering mixture of tomato sauce, garlic bread and spices—but the homey atmosphere was inviting. Checkered red-and-white tablecloths covered the booths and tables, and scenic vistas of Italy decorated the walls.
Tony had suggested meeting at three o’clock, because it was between lunch and dinner. The only people in the restaurant were an elderly couple sitting at a corner table near the entrance, a young boy of about five or six and the woman.
The woman sat with the boy in a rear booth, although the latest in the string of females he mentally referred to as “the Connies” hadn’t said anything about bringing her son.
Yesterday’s Connie had been a petite bleached blonde he’d frightened off with surprising ease. When Sofia was in the restroom, he’d threatened to investigate her background for past crimes and outstanding warrants. She’d bolted when he got to the part about pressing charges against her for fraud.
Although Tony had been in McIntosh for nearly a week, this would be his first meeting with a Connie without Sofia present. He’d set this one up on the sly, wanting to spare his stepmother more disappointment.
At least this Connie looked the part.
Long, wavy hair more black than brown set off by an orangey knit sweater. Eyes he could tell were nearly that dark even from across the room. Features that didn’t fit America’s cookie-cutter notion of beauty but that Tony found much more intriguing. Even the Mediterranean cast of her skin was right.
By contrast the boy looked all-American, from his tousled mop of brownish hair to his inability to sit still. The latest Connie had been smart enough to seat the boy on her side of the booth with her body hemming him in.
She looked up, and he realized he’d been staring for a good thirty seconds. Their eyes connected, and his body reacted with an unexpected tug of lust.
He frowned. The Connie was most likely married. Even if she wasn’t, he had serious questions about her character. He’d place the odds of her being Sofia’s daughter at a million to one. The odds were probably higher that she already knew that.
Shoving aside his momentary lapse, he walked purposefully toward her. He couldn’t miss the slight widening of her eyes when he didn’t stop until he reached their booth.
“I’m Tony. Mind if I sit down?”
Without waiting for permission, he slid into the red vinyl seat opposite them. Her mouth dropped open, but the little guy piped up before she could speak.
“I’m Joey.” He had a chocolate milk mustache and a cowlick that caused his short hair to spring up in unexpected directions. “Wanna see a toad?”
Shock appeared on his mother’s face, infusing it with life. “Joey! I thought you let the toad go.”
“I did,” the boy said with an unhappy pout. “But I bet I could find him again.”
