“That’s why you have to take my children. They’re sweet kids, Zak. Not perfect, but you know what will happen if I don’t find them a home.”
“Foster care.” He knew how much she’d hated growing up in the social system and how she’d wished for a family she’d never gotten. Now, she had one, in these children, and she was losing them. “What about Tank?”
She rolled her eyes. “I haven’t seen Tank in a long time.”
That figured, but still. “They’re his boys.”
“He’s mean. He hit Brandon a lot.” Probably Crystal, too, from what Zak recalled of Tank Rogers. “I left him after Jake came along. I’ve made a mess of my life but I love my kids. They deserve better.”
The middle boy began to sniffle. The older one scowled and stared at the wall, a robot of a boy.
“Maybe the kids should go outside and play while we talk?” Zak suggested.
“Sure.” Weakly, she pushed at Brandon. “Take Jake and Bella outside. Stay in the yard.”
The stiff-backed boy trudged out, gripping his sister’s hand. Jake trailed them, sucking his thumb.
When the back door snapped closed, Zak held out his palm as an olive branch. He intended to be kind but firm. “I’ll help you in some other way, Crystal, but I can’t do this. I don’t know anything about raising children, especially a little girl.” The daddy word gave him cold chills. Maybe she’d see the folly of her suggestion if he laid out the facts about himself. “First of all, I’m single. They need a mother. And I’m gone a lot. My firefighter job comes with a crazy schedule. Plus, I play a lot of baseball.”
“Still?”
What did she mean “still”?
“Dreams die hard.” Hey, he was only twenty-seven. Roger Clemens won a Cy Young Award when he was forty-two. The majors could still come calling.
“The job, baseball, being single, none of that matters, Zak. My kids need you.”
All those things mattered to him! “They need a caring family, Crystal. There are people out there who will adopt three cute kids. A family, not some single guy without a clue about raising them.”
“Who? Name one person who would adopt three kids all at once.”
“I don’t know,” he said, exasperated. “Someone.”
If he told her to call child welfare, she’d go ballistic. He wouldn’t do that anyway. But what could he do? He was not the daddy type.
“You’re the only person I’d trust with them.”
Oh, man. She was killing him. He wished like crazy Jilly was here to help him out. She’d know what to say. “Ask me for something else, but not this. I can’t.”
Crystal pressed shaky knuckles to her mouth but didn’t cry. For that he was grateful. A crying woman was a powerful force.
On wobbly legs she rose, and with more dignity than he’d imagined she said, “I’m sorry to have bothered you. You aren’t the man I remembered, after all.”
Jilly heard car doors slam. She pushed off the grass, scratched at the itch on the back of her leg and carried Lucky to the corner of the house. From there she could see Zak’s driveway. She rubbed Lucky’s velvet ear and watched as Zak reached into his pocket, took out his wallet and offered Crystal some money. She must have refused because he leaned into the window to say something and tossed the bills inside.
The battered Chevy backed down the drive, children’s faces pressed against the windows, and left Zak standing with arms dangling at his sides as they drove away.
Had there been some sort of ghastly mistake? Was she Zak’s wife or not? If they were married, where was she going? And why was he tossing money into her car?
Hope sprang up like a tenacious weed. Maybe they weren’t married. Maybe she’d misunderstood the conversation. After all, she’d been in the kitchen with three talking children. She’d made a mistake. Thank goodness.
Or maybe the woman was a nightmare from Zak’s past and he’d paid her to go away. Maybe she’d come to extort money. Maybe…
Curiosity getting the better of her, she put Lucky and the other rabbits back in the hutch and went inside to wash her face and hands. She had to know. Yes, she was nosy, but Zak was her best friend. He needed her.
And she’d go crazy if she didn’t know the truth.
Please let the conversation be a misunderstanding on my part. Zak could not be married.
“You look better.” Her mother stood in the laundry room, folding towels into a green plastic basket. The smell of lavender fabric softener, moist and hot from the dryer filled the narrow space.
“I’m going over to Zak’s. Don’t get too hot back here. I can fold these later.”
Mom, who worried less about her blood pressure than her daughter did, said, “I saw that woman leave. I wonder who she was. All those children.”
“You had three children.” Jilly snagged a clean washcloth.
“Mmm. Didn’t seem that many back then.” Mom kneed the drier shut with a metallic bang. “You don’t think she’s Zak’s girlfriend, do you?”
Jilly’s stomach lurched. She fisted the washcloth into a wad. “I wouldn’t know.”
“Did you watch that movie on cable last night? The one I told you about?”
“Yes, Mom.” She’d watched the DVD a long time ago. The movie, about a girl who was always a bridesmaid and never a bride, could have been the story of Jillian’s life. Except for the part about finding the guy of her dreams. Or rather him finding her. Jilly had found hers five years ago when Zak bought the house across the street. Beyond sharing pipe wrenches and hamburgers, he hadn’t bothered to notice.
“That could happen to you if you’d stop jumping every time he calls.” Mom handed her a stack of clean, fragrant towels. “Zak likes you. That woman is the first one I’ve ever seen over there other than his mother and you.”
“Mom, let it go.” Jilly hid her reddening face behind the stack of terry cloth. “Guys don’t find me attractive in that way. Zak likes me for a friend.”
“Maybe he’d like you for more if you played hard to get. Men are intrigued by a woman they can’t have.”
Jilly chanted her mantra, the one she’d used since she was sixteen. “When the time is right, the Lord will send someone.”
Someone who didn’t mind her freckles or red hair, someone who saw the real Jillian Fairmont. Not some jerk like Clay Trent who’d called her “Spotty” in front of the entire junior class. “Men don’t find me attractive.”
“You’re too hung up about your looks, Jillian. You’re a beautiful woman.”
