Linda Markowiak - And Baby Makes Six

There was something about the scene that gave Mitch a stab of pure guilt. “Of course she’s okay,” he said gruffly. “You didn’t seriously think we’d hurt her, did you?”

She looked up at him, her blue eyes capturing his. “I didn’t think so, but when I got her e-mail—”

“E-mail. Crystal sends you e-mail?”

Crystal looked up at him fearfully, but when she spoke, she sounded just a touch defiant. “You never said I couldn’t send e-mail.”

He stared at her.

“It was only because I thought I was dying,” Crystal explained.

Dying?

He said, “Uh, Jenny, why don’t you come in and we’ll talk about this.”

Even as she straightened, he saw Ryan and Tommy start to slink away. “All of us.”

Before he could suggest the living room, which was the cleanest room in the house because nobody used it, Tommy motioned Jenny Litton into the kitchen.

He followed his sons, Crystal and Jenny, and then stood behind Jenny in the doorway. He was standing so close to her he could see the distinct colors of gold in her hair. Its disarray had exposed part of her neck. He saw the clasp of her pearls on skin that looked tender and white.

Quickly, he raised his eyes. That was a mistake, too, because he found himself seeing his kitchen through her eyes. A kitchen that probably horrified Miss-Perfect-Pearls. There was a scratching sound intermingled with whines as Face-off begged to be let out of the laundry room.

Six cupboard doors were open. Four bowls of milk were on the counter. Splashes everywhere. Errant Froot Loops. A crumpled cereal box. Two teaspoons, upside down in little puddles of milk. An empty cardboard box that had held last night’s pizza—it was too big to fit in the trash can, so the boys always waited for him to carry it to the garage. Schoolbooks, backpacks on the table. Lunch fixings—peanut butter and an open jar of jelly, chips, yogurt—he’d learned that it was best to pack the kids’ lunches the night before, but who could remember? One of the cords that held the draperies back on the big sliding doors in the eating area had come loose, and the draperies just…hung there on that side. When had that cord come undone?

Jenny moved into the kitchen, and any minute now those high heels of hers would hit the sticky patch…

He was going to mop the floor as soon as he had a chance. He was going to make the boys pick up after themselves. He really was going to make lunches the night before, from here on out.

But first he had to find out why Crystal had thought she was dying.

Jenny refused his offer to sit. He introduced her to the boys as a friend of Crystal’s. They hovered around the fringes of the room like groupies hanging out at the locker room after a game, looking everywhere but at Jenny and Crystal.

Mitch lounged against the counter, a deceptively casual pose. “Okay,” he said quietly. “Why did you think you were dying, Crystal?”

She took another look at Jenny, who squeezed her shoulders.

In a small voice, she told about the football game of the day before.

“It was touch,” Ryan said quickly, and Mitch made a slicing motion with his hand to cut his son off before he could explain further.

“It was touch,” Crystal agreed. “But they touched real hard. They made me bleed. Then they made me promise not to tell. But before dinner, my arm stopped bleeding. I sort of forgot I sent the e-mail. But before I went to bed I wanted Miss Jenny to come. I want Miss Jenny to come before I go to bed every night.”

That guilt came again, along with pressure in his chest. She still wanted Jenny to come and take her away? Crystal called her every night, but Mitch hadn’t known she went to sleep wanting anybody other than her mom, and he couldn’t bring back Kathy.

He raked a hand through his hair again. Where was that absolute certainty that he was doing the right thing that had gripped him all the way to South Carolina, the sensation that had gotten him through his sister’s funeral and the decisions that followed?

“Let me see your arm,” Jenny said in her slow southern drawl, a drawl that by its very slowness seemed comforting. She sat Crystal in a chair and knelt beside her as she carefully pulled up the girl’s sleeve.

“It’s scratched,” she said in the same tone he imagined she’d use for “It’s broken.”

He peered down.

“It bled and bled,” Crystal said earnestly. “Or I wouldn’t bother Miss Jenny.”

Jenny gave her hand a quick squeeze. “Sweetheart, you’re never bothering me.”

Mitch looked the boys over real good. “Okay, which one of you had the lamebrained idea of playing football with a little girl?”

“It was touch,” someone said again.

“Touch or not, which one of you came up with this one?”

Tommy pointed at Ryan, Ryan pointed at Tommy. Mitch sighed and said, “I thought I told you to be nice.”

Tommy said, “We were nice. It’s how we’re nice. We play with the Squirt, we play with the kid.”

Mitch quelled the urge to throttle him. Then Jenny got a tight-lipped look about her that irritated him. He’d just bet that Miss Jenny Litton didn’t like his kids any more than she liked him. In a flash, he went from wanting to throttle his sons to wanting to defend them in front of this judgmental woman. If she walked across that sticky spot on his floor and dared to say anything—

“Dad? There goes the bus.” Luke, who’d been silent up till now, pointed out the window.

Damn. “Luke, can you drive the boys? I’ll take Crystal to the elementary school before I head for the store. I’ve got a meeting there, but I’ll ask the guy to reschedule. I won’t be long,” he said to Jenny. “Then I can come back and we’ll talk.”

She seemed to perk up a little at that. He tried not to sigh. His experience with women was limited, but he remembered how Anne had always liked to talk about stuff like this. He went up to grab a sweater, deciding he’d have to shave when he got home. He swiped a hand across his chin and felt the stubble there. Great. He sure hated mornings.

When he got back downstairs, Jenny was helping Crystal into her coat. “Will you be here when I get home from school?” Crystal asked Jenny, her eyes bright with hope.

Jenny looked up at Mitch. He nodded.

“Sure. You bet I’ll be here.” Crystal threw her arms around Jenny’s waist, and Jenny bent and hugged her tight, before releasing her to Mitch.

“Can you manage to get her to school in one piece, or would that be too much to ask?” she whispered as he was walking out the door.

“The boys were just playing.” But he shut up after that. He understood that she was upset. The e-mail must have really scared her. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. Oh, by the way, don’t open the door to the laundry room. The dog’s in there. He’ll probably just go to sleep.”

As he turned the key in the Jeep, he thought of how Jenny looked, pretty and fragile. But that was deceptive. She had a will and a mouth to follow up on that will. He was going to have to do some real smooth talking.

He frowned and looked in the rearview mirror at Crystal. She was sitting in the back seat, and she was smiling a little, looking out the window.

When had he last seen her smile? Not since she’d left South Carolina, he realized.

JENNY THOUGHT briefly about trying to create some order in this kitchen, but quickly changed her mind. Cleaning up here would be…presumptuous, not that she guessed that would be a word they’d use in this house. Not that she’d bet Mitch would even notice. He hadn’t even noticed that Crystal had cut herself playing football. Football! So what if he hadn’t been home? He should have seen that Crystal was upset when he’d got back last night.