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The boys were a handful. Tommy reminded Logan of himself as a kid—always on the go. Tyler was more like the middle Hardell brother, Reid—quiet and watchful. No one ever knew what Reid was thinking, but he was always aware of what was going on around him.
Logan prepared a fresh pot of coffee in case any of the guests wanted a cup before hitting the road, and then he went into the small bathroom in the hallway and opened his dopp kit. After he erased his five-o’clock shadow with his electric shaver, he brushed his teeth and gargled with mouthwash. Back in the office, he stared out the window. The sun was beginning to rise and it looked like someone had taken a giant brush and painted a swath of pink across the horizon.
C’mon, Gunner. Get out of bed.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw something race past the rooms outside. He opened the lobby door just in time to see the backside of a little person tearing around the corner of the motel.
Tommy.
What was the kid doing up this early in the morning? Logan left the office, glancing down the sidewalk to the Stagecoach room. From across the parking lot it looked as if the kid had left the door cracked open. Logan doubted Sadie even knew her son had escaped. When he walked behind the motel he found Tommy, his pajama bottoms still on backward, standing on the playground swing.
As soon as the boy realized he wasn’t alone, he shouted, “Uncle Logan, push me!”
Uncle Logan. The moniker squeezed his heart and not in a good way. Logan walked behind the swing. “Sit down and I’ll give you an underduck.”
The boy dropped to the seat. “What’s an underduck?”
“Hold on tight, and I’ll show you.” Logan pulled the swing back, then ran forward, pushing the seat up and over his head. Tommy squealed. “Do it again, Uncle Logan!”
He ignored the command and said, “You’re awake awful early this morning.”
No answer.
“Is your mother up?”
“I don’t know.”
He had a feeling Tommy’s standard response to most questions was I don’t know. “Are you hungry?”
“Mom said we could have doughnuts for breakfast ’cause we went to sleep fast.”
Logan expected Sadie to appear any moment, searching for her son. But five minutes had passed and she hadn’t made an appearance.
“I wanna stop, Uncle Logan.”
He stepped forward and caught the swing. “C’mon, I’ll walk you to the room.”
“I don’t want to go back to sleep.”
Logan hadn’t only noticed how pretty Sadie was last night when she’d checked her and the boys into the motel. He’d also noted the dark circles beneath her eyes. The drive from Wisconsin to Texas had exhausted her. “Tell you what,” he said. “You and I will go get the doughnuts.” And let your mother and brother catch up on sleep.
Logan took Tommy’s hand and returned to the office, where he wrote two sticky notes explaining that he and Tommy had gone down the road to the Valero to buy everyone breakfast. He stuck one note on Gunner and Lydia’s door and the other one, which had his cell phone number on it, against the inside of Sadie’s door before he quietly closed it all the way.
“What about my booster seat?” Tommy asked when Logan opened the door of his pickup. His gaze swung to the white minivan. The safety seats were locked inside.
“I think I have something that might work. Follow me.” He and Tommy went behind the desk and down the hallway to the storage closet. “I bought this for my brother and your aunt’s baby.” Logan pulled the tarp off a box. “This is the Cadillac of all car seats, kid.” Logan had spent a small fortune on the contraption that claimed to be a five-point-harness seat and later converted into a booster seat once a kid reached forty pounds. “How much do you weigh?” he asked.
Tommy shrugged, then pointed to the image on the box. “That’s a baby. I’m not a baby.”
“I think this will work for a short trip.” He opened the box and removed the seat, then detached the top portion meant for younger kids and infants. “Let’s see if I can figure out how to install the booster seat.”
It took several tries and a few swallowed cusswords before Logan had the contraption secured in the back seat and Tommy strapped in.
“You look like a trussed-up turkey.”
“I look like a baby.” The boy’s mouth turned down in a pout.
Logan ignored him and climbed behind the wheel. The Valero was ten miles down the road and Tommy talked the entire fifteen-minute drive. By the time he parked in front of the convenience mart, Logan’s ears were hurting. It wasn’t until they entered the store that he saw his sidekick was barefoot. “What happened to your shoes?”
“I don’t know.”
“Let me see your foot.”
Tommy grabbed a fistful of Logan’s jean and balanced on one leg while he lifted the other. The bottom of his foot was as black as the ink hospitals used on newborns to take their footprints.
“Can I have candy?” Tommy asked.
Logan didn’t know if Sadie allowed the boys to eat candy, so he played it safe. “No candy. You’ll get your sugar fix with the doughnuts.” They stopped at the pastry display next to the soda machine. “What kind do you like?”
“I like ’em all.”
“We’ll get a couple of each.” He filled two bags with a dozen and a half doughnuts, then grabbed four bottles of milk from the refrigerator and set their purchases on the checkout counter. “How’s it going, Elmer?” The elderly man had worked at the Valero for the past five years.
“Where’d you pick up your friend?” Elmer smiled at Tommy.
Tommy spoke first. “How much money did the tooth fairy give you?”
Elmer’s sagging jowls swallowed his chin. “What are you talkin’ about, kid?”
“The tooth fairy leaves a dollar under my pillow for my tooth.”
Elmer flashed his empty gums. “I didn’t get nothin’.”
“Why not?”
“’Cause I got my front teeth knocked out in a bar fight and I never did find them.”
Tommy stepped on the candy shelf in front of the checkout and hoisted himself onto the counter. “You shoulda wrote the tooth fairy a note like my mom did.”
Elmer scratched his balding head. “You don’t say?”
“I lost my tooth at recess and I couldn’t find it, but my mom wrote a note and the tooth fairy still came.”
“Next time one of my teeth gets knocked out of my mouth, I’ll give that a try,” Elmer said.
“My mom can write you a note. She writes good notes.”
Elmer chuckled and rang up the doughnuts and milk, then Logan slid his debit card through the machine.
“My mom’s good at lots of stuff ’cause my dad doesn’t live with us. He’s moving to Balkimore.”
Elmer’s fuzzy eyebrows fused together over his nose.
Logan scooped his yappy partner off the counter, then handed him one of the pastry-filled bags. “Have a good day, Elmer.” He opened the door for Tommy and they left the store.
“Can I eat a doughnut in the car?” Tommy asked after Logan buckled him into the booster seat.
Logan’s brother and sister-in-law wouldn’t appreciate him gifting them a dirty car seat, but faced with the prospect of Tommy’s chatter all the way back to the motel he decided to take his chances and keep the kid’s mouth busy chewing rather than talking. “Go ahead and have a doughnut.”
The only noise on the return ride was the country music playing on the radio. As the pickup approached the motel a few minutes later, Logan spotted Sadie standing outside her room, arms crossed, her flip-flop tapping the cement. As soon as she saw the pickup, she marched across the parking lot, her blond hair swaying in rhythm with her hips.
“I think we’re in trouble, buddy.” He glanced in the rearview mirror. Tommy’s cheeks were puffed out like a chipmunk’s.
“What happened?” he asked, giving Logan an eyeful of pulverized doughnut and raspberry filling.
“I don’t think your mother’s happy we took off without her.” Sadie wasn’t dressed to go anywhere in a nightshirt that ended just above her knees. The baggy material did nothing to conceal her figure and Logan couldn’t help appreciating her womanly curves.
Logan shifted into Park and pulled the key from the ignition, all the while keeping his gaze on Sadie. He doubted she had any idea that he could see the shadow of her bikini panties and the outline of her breasts beneath the blue shirt. He forced himself to look away from the bouncing temptation. “C’mon, kid. Time to face the music.” He hopped out and opened the back door, then helped Tommy to the ground.
“Thomas James McHenry.” Sadie cornered her son against the side of the truck. “You know you’re never supposed to wander off without telling me.”
Tommy’s eyes crossed as he watched his mother’s finger wag in front of his nose.
Then her finger pointed at the ground. “Where are your shoes?”
Tommy dropped his gaze and stared at his feet as if he expected his toes to answer his mother.
“And you—” Sadie glared at Logan. “How could you just take off with my son and not tell me first?”
“I left a note on the—”
“I don’t care about a note.” Sadie’s voice rose in pitch and Logan worried that she’d wake the guests in the other rooms. “We may be distantly related now, but I hardly know you and my sons don’t know you at all.”
“Mom.” Tommy tugged on Sadie’s shirt. “How come you’re yelling at Uncle Logan?”
Sadie ignored her son but lowered her voice. “It’s inexcusable that you drove Tommy somewhere without securing him in his booster seat.”
Logan doubted Sadie would allow him to get a word in edgewise if he tried to defend himself, so he reached behind Tommy and opened the pickup door.
Sadie’s eyes widened. “Where did—”
“I bought it for Gunner and Lydia’s baby. It’s top-of-the-line. Fits newborns and older kids.”
She rubbed her brow before looking him in the eye. “I’m sorry I yelled at you, but I panicked when I woke and Tommy wasn’t in bed with Tyler.” She ruffled Tommy’s hair. “This guy has wandered off before and each time I lose ten years off my life.”
“I’m sorry. I should have waited until you’d woken and asked permission to take him with me.” His apology earned him a half smile from Sadie.
“Mom?”
“What?”
“Can you write a note to the tooth fairy?”
The question caught Sadie off guard and she lowered her finger. “What?”
“Elmo lost his teeth, but he can’t find them and he needs a note so the tooth fairy can give him two dollars.”
“Elmer,” Logan corrected, keeping a straight face. “Not Elmo.”
“Mom?”
“What?”
“Uncle Logan bought us doughnuts.” Tommy held up the bag.
“I see that.” Her gaze shifted to Logan. “When did he leave the room this morning?”
“A little after five thirty, I found him playing on the swings.”
“I told Uncle Logan you said we could have doughnuts for breakfast,” Tommy said.
“There isn’t a doughnut shop in Stampede, so we drove down to the Valero. Elmer works in the convenience store.”
“Mom?”
“What?”
“I gotta pee.”
“Go!” Sadie pointed to their motel room and Tommy took off running. “That boy will be the death of me yet.”
“Where’s Tyler?”
“Still sleeping.” Her gaze followed Tommy across the lot. “Or he was.”
Tyler stood in the open doorway, rubbing sleep from his eyes.
Right then Gunner stepped from room 1, wearing only his boxers. “What’s all the commotion out here?” His gaze traveled over Sadie, then he looked at Logan and grinned. “You get lucky last night, big brother?”
* * *
OH. MY. GOD.
Sadie crossed her arms over her chest, hoping to hide her unharnessed boobs. She’d been in such a panic when she woke up, and after finding Logan’s note on the door, she’d forgotten she was wearing only a pair of panties and a flimsy nightshirt. This was not how she’d planned to dress when she saw Lydia and Gunner this morning. Before Sadie found her voice, squealing tires startled her. Logan grasped her arm and stepped in front of her, shielding her from view. An old pickup that looked like it had been unearthed from a junkyard turned into the motel and veered toward the office. A minute later, Aunt Amelia’s 1958 white Thunderbird convertible pulled alongside the clunker.
“We’ve got trouble,” Logan said.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
