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She went to turn on the oven to preheat, then plopped down on a box marked Hughes—kitchen.
Though she was thrilled to have the house, disappointment nibbled at her joy. She had hoped to build her dream home, a haven for her and the kids, and to finally experience the security of owning a home. But once the medical bills and funeral expenses had been paid, the insurance money was nearly gone. Anthony had made the mistake of procrastinating on increasing his policy once the children were born.
We’re young and healthy, he’d said. We need the money for groceries.
And, foolishly, she hadn’t insisted he rectify the situation. Now, all she’d been able to afford was a larger rental property. Home ownership would have to come later.
She opened the box she’d been sitting on and dug to find the round baking sheet. After washing it, she pulled the pizza out of the freezer and popped it into the oven.
The kitchen was slowly looking homier. At least now they didn’t have to squeeze into a three-bedroom apartment, and once school started in the fall, they wouldn’t be stepping all over each other as they got ready for work and school in the mornings. Even if the Ryker house didn’t belong to them, it was still theirs for the time being.
As long as Mark didn’t cause a problem.
The front door banged open, and Becca barreled into the room, winded. “Can we let Blue out of his pen?”
She smiled at her precious daughter, who’d begged for a pet for the past three years. Redd’s dog, a sweet and endlessly patient black Labrador retriever, had been almost as big a draw as the house. “You sure can.”
As Becca zipped back outside with an echoing whoop of joy, worry crept over Hannah. What if Mark had come home to stake a claim? She looked around a room where Mark and his brother, Matt, would have eaten their meals with friends and family.
What if Mark suddenly had an interest in the family home?
Hannah knew she would do whatever she had to do to keep her kids happy.
Since Hannah had thwarted Mark’s plan to check into his dad’s financial state, on Saturday morning he decided to return to the house and do a closer inspection. To estimate the cost of needed repairs.
He’d assumed Redd would be at the hardware store, but an unfamiliar green minivan sat parked out front. The truck he’d seen the day before was gone. He should probably knock before walking the property. In case his dad was there. And if he was…
Well, Mark would try once again to apologize.
This time, he looked more closely as he inspected the dirty front porch that fronted three sides of the old home. When he reached the far corner, he caught himself grabbing for the cobweb-covered broom as if he were still ten years old. Sweeping the porch had been his and Matt’s job—a chore they’d deemed too girly.
He smiled at the memory, yet being on their old stomping grounds intensified the emptiness that never quite left him.
Matt, who’d suffered mild brain damage at their birth, hadn’t been as strong and healthy as Mark. Mark had always tried to include him, though. But one day when they were fifteen, and their dad shooed them from the hardware store, Mark talked Matt into going fishing on the lake. Into taking out their dad’s boat, knowing good and well they weren’t supposed to go alone…knowing Matt couldn’t swim.
As he turned away from the broom and faced the front door, he doubted his sanity. Only a glutton for punishment would return to this house again. We are more than conquerors through Him who loved us, he reminded himself, a Bible verse he had clung to for years.
He raised his fist to knock, but something tugged on his pant leg.
“Hi, Mister.” A little boy about five or six years old stared up at him with big brown eyes. “Are you looking for Mommy?”
After a glance around the porch and yard, he squatted down to the child’s level. “No. I’m looking for my, uh…” daddy? “…father.”
All business, the boy crossed his arms and seemed to ponder the situation. “You look kinda old to be lost.”
Trying to match the boy’s expression, Mark stifled a laugh. But then sobered when he realized how close to home the boy had hit. “Actually, this is my house. My dad lives here.”
The kid shook his head. “You really are lost. ’Cause this is my new house.”
Laughter sounded somewhere off to the side of the house. Then three children appeared around the corner, chattering. One by one, they stopped talking when they saw Mark.
Only the youngest girl approached and tromped up the steps. “Who are you?”
“He’s lost,” the first boy said, as if imparting the juiciest of secrets.
“Lost?” The oldest girl hurried up the steps and scrutinized Mark. “How exciting.” Large brown eyes that matched the youngest boy’s widened. She peered at him from behind pink, sparkly plastic-rimmed glasses. “I can help. I’m good at solving mysteries.”
A bush swished as the last child—a boy somewhere between the oldest and younger two in age—kicked around the overgrown shrubbery, ignoring the investigation on the porch.
Mark turned back to the others. “Actually, I’m looking for my dad, Redd Ryker. He lives here. And you are…?”
“My children.”
Mark turned and found Hannah Hughes behind the screen door. Inside his family home. She looked even less friendly than yesterday.
“See, I told you this was my house,” the youngest boy said.
Hannah stepped outside, and as the door swung open, Mark caught a glimpse of boxes in the entryway. As if someone was moving.
He pointed to the boxes. “What’s going on?”
“Kids, go wash up. There’s a snack on the table.”
Once they’d scampered into the house, Hannah turned back to him. “We’re renting from your father.”
Incredulous, he sputtered, “That can’t be. My dad would never rent this place. It belonged to his grandfather.” And was Mark’s home, even if he hadn’t set foot in it for years.
A sudden longing to be close to his mom again made it difficult to speak. He wanted to go inside, see what had become of his old bedroom. Of his spot at the kitchen table. Of his mother’s things.
Hannah looked away, almost guiltily. “Apparently, he’s decided he doesn’t need such a big house and prefers to live in the garage apartment.”
The garage? No matter how badly Mark had wronged this woman’s family, he couldn’t let her run all over his family. “Look at this place. It’s run-down. My guess is you took advantage of his financial difficulties.”
There it was again—a flash of guilt. “We simply responded to an ad in the newspaper.”
He took a step closer and stared into her eyes. They were a beautiful, pure green and couldn’t hide a thing. “Now I understand why you wouldn’t give me information about Dad’s finances at the bank yesterday.”
He had to give her credit. She didn’t back down. No, she actually leaned in closer. “I told you. I don’t have authorization to divulge information on your father’s accounts.”
“Accounts, plural? Maybe including a line of credit?”
Her face revealed a flicker of something he took as confirmation before she turned away. “I need to go check on the kids.”
“I see you’re not settled yet. I suggest you and your husband wait to unpack. Before I leave town, I’d like to know that all Dad’s finances are in order and he’s back in his home.”
“I have a signed contract that says we’re staying.”
“I guess we’ll see about that.” As he strode to the garage, he promised himself he’d get to the bottom of the situation. If his dad was in the bind he suspected, then Mark had to make sure he was financially secure. Redd might refuse to speak to him, but surely he wouldn’t refuse help. Mark would park himself in the garage if he had to, until his dad listened to reason.
He banged on the upstairs apartment door. But of course, there was no answer. Redd would be at the hardware store, probably all day.
He plopped down on the top of the steep outside stairs and leaned his forearms on his knees. He’d come home to apologize. That was it. To say he was sorry, have his dad pronounce forgiveness, and then head back to Seattle.
And now he’d found the man in a mess.
Well, Mark had nothing to do with the situation, so he could just run by the store and apologize one more time. Then be on his way.
But a nudge in his gut—the same one he’d trusted when he’d come here in the first place—told him he needed to see this through.
He opened his cell phone to two measly bars of service and managed a staticky call to his assistant. He informed her of his change of plans.
In several years, Redd would be facing retirement. He should be able to sell his store and live in comfort—not in some apartment over the garage.
It might take Mark two or three days, but he would not leave town until he knew his dad was okay financially and settled back in his home. He owed him that much.
“I found him first.”
“Uh-uh. We all found him together.”
Hannah stepped between the twins, their riotous wavy hair adding to the sense of perpetual energy and motion that surrounded them.
“No one found Mark. He wasn’t even lost. He was here to see Mr. Redd.” She pointed both children toward their new bedrooms. “Now, no more arguing. I switched the schedule to have this Saturday off work so we could do some more unpacking.”
Becca whooped from her room across the upstairs hallway, the sound bouncing off the hardwood floors and high ceilings. The only drawback to a larger, older house was how noise carried. And boy, did her family produce noise.
“I’ll help each of you arrange your room the way you want it,” Hannah said. “Eric, you first.”
Eric huffed and pointed at Emily. “No fair. She’ll get to play longer while I have to do chores.”
“No more arguing. Get to work.”
Tony stuck his head out his door. “When’s Nana going to come see my new room?”
The child loved his grandmother, even with her faults—one of which was holding grudges. She was furious Hannah had moved into a house owned by those Rykers. All these years later, Donna refused to associate with Redd, even though he’d had nothing to do with his son’s behavior.
“I don’t know, sweetie. I’ll be sure to invite her again, though.”
Tony, named for his father, was the only one of the four with Hannah’s green eyes. He was also the most sensitive. Hannah worried that her mom’s refusal to come around would end up hurting him.
Of course, Mark showing up would not help one bit. Maybe Hannah could invite Nana out for the following week—well after Mark headed back to whatever rock he’d climbed out from under.
Those green eyes peeked around the door again. “Will you call her now?”
She knelt down in front of him and gently caressed his face. “Of course. Now, go figure out where you want to store your rock collection.”
As he hurried to obey, she went downstairs to call her mother from the phone in the kitchen, in case they ended up arguing.
Donna Williams picked up on the fourth ring. “Terrible timing, Hannah. I’m trying to get—” she grunted “—a pound cake into the oven.” A thump like an oven door closing rattled over the phone. “Of course, if I wasn’t on the bereavement committee at church, I wouldn’t be doing this. But how could I say no when Ann called me directly with a request for one of my pound cakes?”
If Hannah just sat quietly, she suspected her mother could carry on a whole conversation by herself. Someday, she might test the theory. “So who’s the cake for?”
“The Smith family. Maude died.” The sound of water running blasted in the background. “And you can imagine how it burns me up to have to do something nice for that no-good daughter of hers. Frederica tormented you in second grade. You almost had to change schools. But, well, your daddy refused to move and instead taught you how to fight.”
Yes, her mother still held a grudge against a second-grader who was now thirty years old. Hannah nearly laughed at the memory and made a mental note to give her dad, now remarried and living in Colorado, a call. She and her dad had often made her mother furious.
“Well, I survived. And speaking of moving…”
Banging of dishes continued. “No. I will not babysit out there.”
“Come on, Mom. It’s been two weeks, and the kids are dying to show you around.”
“Why couldn’t you just buy a nice little house in town? Or if you had to move out there to the boondocks, why not rent from someone else? Anyone but those Rykers.”
Hannah shook her head. Donna had always said the name with disdain. And she never used their first names. She lumped father and son together and deemed them both bad news.
Of course, Mark Ryker had turned their world upside down when he started dating Sydney. He’d had a reputation for being wild, and when Sydney began coming in at night with alcohol on her breath, their mom had tried her best to end the relationship.
But by then, Sydney was in love. Or so she had claimed. Hannah had always suspected she enjoyed hanging around a guy who was fun and easygoing like their dad—and not a bit like Mom.
“Mom, I’m not going to debate my decision with you. But I would like to invite you for dinner next week. Tony keeps asking when you’ll come see his bedroom.”
She harrumphed. “Well, you’re not going to catch me setting foot on those Rykers’ property. Tell Tony he’s welcome to come here anytime he wants to see his nana.”
Don’t say it, Hannah. Be calm. One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mississippi…
“Hannah, are you still there?”
“Yes.” But she might have to bite her tongue off. Four Mississippi. Five Mississippi. She took a calming breath. “Please come out here one day next week to watch the kids. Redd will be at work. You won’t run into him.”
“Hannah, I warned you when you first looked at that house. You’re just going to have to bring them to my house on your way to the bank each day. And snap some photos of Tony’s room.”
Once Donna Williams made up her mind, no one could reason with her. Hannah should be grateful she had free child care with a loving family member. But she did worry about her mother’s attitude rubbing off on them.
“I guess I have no other choice.”
“I’m sorry. But I will stand firm. Now, I’ll see you at church tomorrow.”
Yes, as much as she’d love to take another day to finish unpacking and get settled, she didn’t want to miss the service.
Of course, if Mark had his way, she should keep the last of their belongings boxed up. He might, at that very moment, be talking his dad into forcing Hannah and her children out.
She gripped her aching stomach—a two-year-long side effect of chronic worry since Anthony’s death. Worry about letting her children down. About not providing well enough on her own—emotionally or financially. What if one of the kids got injured or seriously ill? Or needed braces? What if she got injured or seriously ill, or lost her job? Or if a landlord decided to kick them out?
All the more reason to stick to her plan to eventually own a home. She wouldn’t have to be at the mercy of a landlord. At the mercy of someone else to repair the property—or not. At the mercy of some man who could pop into town after fifteen years to try to ruin the life of another Williams sister.
But home ownership was years down the road. For now, she needed this house that she and the kids had grown to love. If Mark thought she would give it up without a fight, he was sadly mistaken.
Chapter Three
