Czytaj książkę: «The Drifter's Gift»

Chapter One

Rockview, Idaho

Thanksgiving

“Play the petunia game!”

Wriggling into the bottoms of his favorite superhero pajamas, Timmy Harmon fell back on his soft bed and thrust his bare feet in the air.

“Pick a petunia, Mommy.”

Grinning, Dani tugged her son until he was lying with his rump snuggled against her thigh, his rosy toes close enough for her to kiss. Timmy folded his hands on his belly and giggled. The petunia game was one of his favorites. It made the ritual of a nighttime bath almost worthwhile.

Bending toward her smiling five-year-old, Dani wiggled each little toe in turn. “One petunia for Timmy’s mother to pick. Two petunias for Mommy to pick…” She remembered her mother playing the silly, simple game with her. She’d loved it then as much as Timmy did now.

When she’d wriggled the last toe, Dani bent to place a noisy kiss on the arch of each child-size foot. Curled lovingly around his ankle, her fingers lingered a bit longer than usual tonight

From the first booties she’d put on him to the new blue and red sneakers he’d chosen himself for kindergarten, Dani always felt a bittersweet stir of anticipation when she looked at her little boy’s feet, so small, so wonderfully, restlessly eager. And growing so quickly.

Patting the soft skin of his instep, Dani released her hold and reached for a pair of socks still warm from the dryer. She held them up. “It’s cold tonight. You want socks?”

Timmy nodded. In the glow from the teddy bear lamp on the nightstand, her son’s hair was as russet as her own.

Dani rolled the blue cotton socks over his feet, tickling the arches as she went, filling with pleasure when he dissolved into giggles.

When the socks were in place, Timmy sat up on his knees. “Okay, Mommy, you go out now.”

“You haven’t said your prayers yet.”

“I know, but I’m going to do it myself tonight.”

I can do it was becoming an increasingly common refrain around their house, but rarely at bedtime. Resisting the urge to show her disappointment, Dani smiled and stood.

“Okay, pup.” She bent, kissing his downy cheek. “Lights out when you’re through.”

A stack of clean, folded towels awaited her atop the dryer, and more laundry tumbled inside, so Dani decided to busy herself with hausfrau duties until her own bedtime.

On her way to the hall closet, she glanced into the living room and saw her pop sitting on the couch, just as she and Timmy had left him, head back against the cushion, neck arched, mouth open wide as he snored. His hands lay on his lap, palms up—an unconscious yogi.

From the TV came the sound of voices raised in song. “Auld Lang Syne.” Dani grinned. The last scene in It’s a Wonderful Life. He’d watched that weepy old flick twice already this holiday season, and if she knew her father, he’d watch it twice more before Christmas. He saw things so simply, her sweet dad. Jimmy Stewart was still the best actor going, Donna Reed was the cutest girl, pumpkin pie with whipped cream turned a meal into a feast and…it was a wonderful life.

Pressing her face against the top towel of the stack she carried, Dani let the material absorb her deep sigh. She stood a moment longer, watching her father’s glasses slip by tiny degrees as he snored, then she moved down the hall.

When she reached Timmy’s door, she stopped. Prayers usually lasted all of thirty seconds—forty if there was a pet frog involved—so the muffled sounds coming from her son’s room drew her like a magnet. Sidling alongside the door, she peeked in. The teddy bear lamp was turned off. A night-light provided the only illumination. Timmy spoke to a group of toy figures he’d assembled.

“One more glass of water, that’s all.” He lowered his voice to as deep a register as he could manage—a child’s version of a baritone.

“You were a good boy today.” He jiggled one of the toys, making it speak. “Tomorrow you can have a treat. We’ll go see Santa Claus. Would you like that?” he asked a figure lying on his pillow and in his own voice responded, “Oh, boy! And Mommy will make cookies. Them ones Santa likes.”

“Yes, pup,” he answered in the deep, manly voice again. “Now go to sleep. Mommy and I will watch you.”

Mommy and I? Dani leaned farther around the door. Timmy returned to his normal register. “Kiss Mommy,” he commanded the toy in his right hand—the father. Bringing the two figures together until they clacked heads, he made a noisy sucking sound. “Now tell Mommy you love her.” And once more in the baritone, “I love you. Now go to sleep.”

Walking his makeshift family across the bed, he seated them on the nightstand, positioning the plastic figures so that the two parents were standing protectively over their son.

Tucking himself beneath the quilt, Timmy curled up on his side, eyes open, curly head craned, watching his “family” watch him.

Frozen in the doorway, Dani forgot she was holding towels until the stack began to topple. Making a quick, noiseless save, she backed into the hall. Her steps to the closet were so automatic she barely registered she was taking them.

In the living room, her father’s snoring intensified to buzz-saw decibels. Dani stowed the towels, her hands shaking, her movements clumsy. Jelly seemed to have replaced the bones in her knees.

She remembered the promise she’d made her son the day they’d left the hospital together—she lonely and scared at twenty-three, he a tiny, defenseless bundle wrapped in her arms. We’ll be a family, you and I. I promise.

Pressing her palms against the oft-painted panel of the closet door, Dani touched her forehead to the wood and squeezed her eyes tight. Oh, God, had she failed? They were a family, weren’t they? She hadn’t blown it too badly yet, had she?

She certainly hadn’t meant to wind up broke in the boondocks of Idaho, in a house that was a paint job away from dilapidated, on a farm that barely supported itself. She hadn’t meant for them to be alone on Thanksgiving or Christmas or New Year’s.

Hearing the sudden snort that signaled her father wakening from his nap, Dani pushed away from the closet, wiped her eyes and hurried into her bedroom. She closed the door softly behind her, moving toward the window without flipping on the light.

With the curtains drawn, moonlight cast silver beams into the room. Dani stood close to the cold glass, arms wrapped around her waist, staring out.

I should have moved to Los Angeles, some city where the local chapter of Parents Without Partners is bigger than the PTA.

This time her sigh was ragged and tired. It fogged the glass. Everywhere she looked, stars seemed to be winking.

“Whatever the joke is, I wish you’d let me in on it,” she whispered to the cosmos.

Somewhere under this very same sky were people who still made wishes, people who still believed. She’d been like that once, dreaming with her eyes wide open. That’s what she wanted for her son—enough innocence to believe that dreams came true. Five was too young yet to learn about life’s disappointments.

Shivering inside her thick sweater, Dani hugged herself more tightly. What, she wondered, could this nighttime sky with its moon and its stars and its mystery have to offer a not-so-young-anymore single mother who’d stopped believing in wishes long ago?

Letting her hands drift up until they were linked beneath her chin, she closed her eyes. And then, because she had no idea what else to do, for the first time in more years than Dani could remember, she prayed.

“Girl, you are out of your gourd!”

“Shh, Pop, Timmy’ll hear you.” From the kitchen doorway, Dani glanced into the living room to check on her son, who was still engrossed in running his dump truck up and down the legs of their sofa. His pliant lips sputtered as he made engine sounds.

Turning toward the oven, Dani removed a pan of oatmeal-coconut crunch cookies.

“Want coffee?” she asked her father. “There’s one cup left in the pot.”

Eugene Harmon shook his head. “Nope. I had three cups already. Too much caffeine.” He watched Dani cross to the fridge to pour herself a glass of orange juice. “’Course, I don’t want it to go to waste if you’re not going to have any.” He rose with his mug. “Pour it in there.”

Blinking rapidly behind his glasses, Gene hitched his trousers higher on his waist—his characteristic gesture when he anticipated something enjoyable. Dani smiled. Timmy had adopted the same habit of late.

“Want one of these?” Reaching for the giant cookies, she pulled her hand back abruptly and affected an innocent look. “Oh, sorry, Pop. I forgot, you’re cutting back on sugar, too, aren’t you?”

Gene pulled a dish from one of the cabinets. Brown eyes shining as he acknowledged the gibe, he tapped the center of the chipped china dessert plate. “Just put it right there.”

They settled at the breakfast table, and Dani began to fidget, plucking at a piece of orange pulp that was stuck to the rim of her glass.

“You know, it’s not such a bad idea when you think about it,” she said hesitantly, easing back to the topic at hand. She raised her eyes to her father’s. Behind wire-framed glasses, Gene regarded his daughter stonily, and Dani squirmed with the need to defend the decision she’d come to during the night “Pop, how many great marriages do you know of? I mean really great ones. Love affairs. Name three off the top of your head.”

Gene popped a piece of cookie into his mouth, taking an excessively long time to chew. “Antony and Cleopatra.”

“Live people.”

Reaching for his coffee, he frowned.

“See?” Dani countered. “Bet you can’t name even one.” Digging peanut butter from a groove in the pine table, she smiled sadly. “Me, either. Except for you and Mom.”

Rubbing his nose where long ago his glasses had left a permanent indentation, Gene nodded. He spoke infrequently of his late wife, but Dani knew he thought of her often.

“You and Mom used to laugh so much. I remember thinking you were telling her jokes.”

Gene smiled. “Sometimes I was.” They sat quietly a moment, then he offered, “You could have that, too. You’re so pretty, honey. And smart. Maybe I never.told you that enough.”

“Yes, you did.” Dani hated the look of uncertainty on her father’s face. “You did everything just right, Pop.”

“Then don’t rush into anything,” he cautioned, referring to the plan she’d related to him this morning. “Marriage is hard work. Without love—”

“I’d rather have commitment without love than love without commitment. And don’t tell me I can have both.” Already primed to utter exactly those words, Eugene’s mouth snapped shut. “I’m twenty-eight years old, and I have a child. I don’t have the time to chase rainbows. I don’t have the energy.”

“You could still meet someone…the natural way.”

Wincing at the clear implication that what she was about to do was highly unnatural, Dani countered, “Where am I going to meet someone in Rockview?”

Fewer than a thousand people lived in the historic mining town, most of them married. Or incontinent “Face it, Pop, when we went eeny-meeny-miney-mo with that map, we landed in a town that makes Noah’s Ark look like a singles’ cruise.”

“You could get out more. Take a girlfriend and drive into Boise. Maybe there’s someplace there you could go dancing.” His inflection rose with hopefulness.

Dancing. After nine or ten hours of work every day, Dani’s feet hurt just thinking about it. “I don’t want to pick someone up at a dance. Or have them try to pick me up. I like my idea better.”

She splayed her hands across the scarred top of the pine table. There was a business-size white envelope next to the ceramic salt shaker. Gene’s gaze followed hers, and his expression grew more troubled. With an effort, Dani steeled herself to proceed even in the face of her father’s uneasiness. Even in the face of her own.

Inside that envelope was her chance to create a family for her son. Mentally, she reviewed the words she’d written and had read to her father early this morning.

A home for the holidays Small family on small farm seeks man willing to make our house his home. Must love kids and hard work. Clean living, solid background with work and personal references required. Ninetyday trial period leading to legal union. Serious inquiries only.

“I got most of my cars through the newspaper,” Gene grumbled. “Half of ’em were lemons.”

Dani mustered a smile. “That’s why I’m insisting on a trial period. It’s like a three-month test drive.”

Gene found little humor in the situation. He shook his head, then stood. “Well. We better get going if we’re going to make it to Lawson’s in time to see Santa.”

The abrupt change in topic threw Dani off stride. She’d intended to talk until Pop saw things her way. But he’d always been the kind of father who let his daughter make her own mistakes. And she’d made some dillies. Praying this wasn’t going to be another of them, Dani picked up the envelope and tucked it in the pocket of her cardigan. Later, she would ask Pop to run the ad over to the Tribune office while she did the grocery shopping. That way she’d have no chance to get cold feet. The County Trib was circulated all over the state. Her ad would get a lot of play.

“I’ll get Timmy. Thanks for coming with us, Pop. These outings with you mean the world to him.”

Gene waved her gratitude away. “He’s my grandson, isn’t he? Better make him put on his mittens. Looks like it may snow again.”

Dani rose. Instead of proceeding to the living room, she laid a hand on Gene’s arm. “It won’t be just anybody. If the right person doesn’t come along, then we’ll just keep doing what we’re doing. But I have to try, Dad. For Timmy.”

Gene covered her hand with his and nodded.

Turning, Dani called out to her son. “Grab your coat and your mittens, pup. We’re going to visit Santa!”