Kaitlyn Rice - The Third Daughter's Wish

“Gabe and I aren’t trick-or-treating.” Josie approached her nephew and claimed a chair next to him. “We’re on our way to a costume party.”

Callie pulled her sleeping baby from the high chair. “Lilly conked out a few minutes ago. I’ll go put her in her crib.”

Josie eyed her niece, a delicate blonde dressed in a pink bunny suit. “She’s really okay? Normal?”

“Not quite normal,” Callie said. “She hasn’t had any other seizures, but I’m noticing some eye fluttering when she wakes up. If she has another episode, her doctor’s going to give me a referral to a pediatric neurologist in Kansas City.”

“Good.” Josie saw that Gabe was still standing and yanked out a chair next to her. “Siddown, Gabe.”

“Oh, please do!” Callie said, standing with the angelic baby at her chest. “I forget you’re company. You aren’t company! Be comfortable!”

As Gabe sat, Lilly made signs of rousing, so Callie glided out of the room to put her to bed.

“Can I go to the party?” Luke asked, staring at his aunt. “I ate five red taffies. Mom says no more candy, but I can probably have some cake.”

“This is an adult party and you’d hate it,” Josie said, grinning at Gabe. “All talk and no cake.”

Luke wrinkled his nose, then picked up a piece of yellow taffy and squashed it between his fingers before sorting it into a pile. He scrutinized the badge on Gabe’s vest, then asked, “You a pleece-man?”

“Sort of,” Gabe said. “I’m dressed as Wyatt Earp, who was a lawman in cowboy days.”

Luke’s eyes widened. “Cool.” Then he studied his aunt, his expression serious again. “You a cowboy pleece-man, too, Aunt Josie?”

“Yes.”

“But you’re a girl.”

“Girls can be police officers or doctors or whatever they want to be,” Josie said. “Your mother’s a research scientist, right? That’s a difficult and very important job.”

“I know. My daddy says a girl can even be president.” Luke’s words made clear his belief in his father’s wisdom. “But does a girl pleece-man hafta dress like a boy? A spooky boy?”

Gabe chuckled at Josie’s gasp of offense. “She’s supposed to be Doc Holliday, who was a male dentist in cowboy days,” he said. “Sometimes he helped Wyatt Earp with the policing duties.”

Luke studied his aunt’s manly hairstyle for a moment. Finally, he gave a nod. Then he pointed proudly at his own badge. “I’m a pleece-man, too, but not a cowboy. I’m a detective like my dad. He rocks socks!”

“He is pretty great, isn’t he?” Josie said.

“Yep.” The little boy nodded. “Lilly can be a doctor like my mom. I wanna be a pleece-man. My teacher says I even take after Daddy!”

Josie’s hazel eyes grew distant. She sat staring at Luke’s candy piles.

Worrying about Lilly again, probably.

Gabe contemplated Luke’s blue police-officer costume. Nodding toward the cap hooked over the back of Luke’s chair, he said, “Cool hat.”

Luke yanked it from the spindle and placed it on his head, then bent sideways in his chair to eye the holster around Gabe’s hips. “I asked for a gun an’ hoe-ster, but Mommy said no way.”

Josie was still silent, focusing on a single purple lollipop that hadn’t been sorted into a pile.

“I know where to find a tool belt in your size,” Gabe told Luke. “A hard hat, too. Maybe next year you could be a building contractor like me.”

After extracting a piece of gum and a roll of hard candy from his pumpkin, Luke placed them carefully on the table before shaking his head. “No. I wanna be a pleece-man, like Daddy.”

“I understand,” Gabe said.

And he did. Josie’s nephew hadn’t met his father until he was a year old, but since then both Ethan and Luke had been making up for lost time. “Oh, well,” Gabe said, shooting a teasing smirk toward Josie. “Maybe I can talk your aunt into being a contractor next year. She’d be less spooky in a tool belt than she is in a mustache, I think.” He winked at Luke, who giggled.

Josie didn’t respond at all. She sat clutching her paper sack and eyeing that damn lollipop, appearing very much as if she hadn’t heard.

She was sure acting strange.

When Callie returned to the kitchen, Gabe and Josie said their goodbyes and returned to the car just as five gruesome-looking revelers passed the dark house.

Gabe watched Josie set the paper sack on her lap again. He’d thought it was a gift for her sister or the kids, but she’d carried it inside and back out again.

Josie didn’t talk in the car, which left Gabe to wonder what could be so wrong. Callie was Lilly’s mother, and she’d obviously decided to maintain as much normalcy as possible.

Gabe wondered how long it would take Josie to unload this new burden, whatever it was. “Something happen at Callie’s that I missed?” he asked.

“Not that I know of.”

More silence.

“Things okay at your work site this week?” he asked as they traveled through downtown Wichita. “Trouble with suppliers?”

She shifted in her seat, and Gabe prayed she’d snap out of it now. “Peter’s pushing for me to finish the first model home by Thanksgiving,” she said. And stopped talking.

Peter Kramer was a Wichita developer who had hired both of them for his current project. He was demanding, but fair. Gabe glanced across at Josie. “Gonna make it?”

She stared straight ahead. “Sure. I’m ordering draperies this week, and I scheduled the furniture to be delivered a week early.”

Josie’s tone was confident. She’d make a lot of money from this job, and she’d probably score a referral or two. Apparently, work wasn’t the problem.

“Ethan and Callie have got a handle on this thing with Lilly,” he said. “They’ll work diligently to find answers. Lucky thing your sister does medical research for a living.”

“Mm-hmm.”

Okay. Josie didn’t sound overly upset about Lilly. Not right now. But she acted…bothered. By something.

“And how’s Isabel? Still enjoying Colorado life?”

“She loves it.”

Gabe asked a few more questions about Josie’s sisters, but she simply answered and didn’t get enthused about her tales. And as soon as he stopped asking, she stopped talking. “What’s bugging you, then, kid?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re completely distracted.”

“No, I’m not.”

“You hardly paid attention to Luke.”

“Yes, I did. He commented on all our costumes. He thought it was strange that I was dressed as a guy.”

“Oh, yeah? What did he want that he didn’t have?”

“A gun and holster. He’s asked for them every year since he was two. Callie always refuses.”

“What did he say when I offered him a tool belt and hard hat?” Gabe asked.

“You didn’t.”

He caught her gaze, held it.

Josie sniffed. “I guess I missed that. I was probably watching Lilly.”

“Callie had taken her out of the room by then.”

Josie scowled.

“See? You’re acting funny.”

“If I am, it’s none of your business.”

He dropped the subject. In his family, everything was everyone’s business. But Josie had grown up with a mother who’d held a high regard for privacy. This wasn’t the first time Josie had told him to mind his own business. Perhaps she’d talk after they’d relaxed at the party for a while.

Or maybe Gabe would stop worrying about it. He’d decided he ought to start dating again—it’d been almost nine months since he’d had that fling with Kendra.

Gabe’s married sister, Nadine, had said she might bring a single teacher friend tonight. She thought the woman and Gabe might hit it off.

Maybe Gabe would focus on his own good time. And Josie could talk when she was ready.