“Am I staying at this school forever?”
“Poor baby.” Lana squatted for a hug. Sydney had changed schools frequently enough to develop reading difficulties. Lana was determined to remedy that problem this year. Stability was the answer, even if it meant living in this awful house. “We’re going to try.”
Sydney rested her hands on Lana’s shoulders, face close. She had the most beautiful olive skin and turquoise eyes.
“You’re not going to sing no more? Never?”
The loss was still as sharp as a hot stick in the eye. Music was the only thing Lana had ever been good at, though like everything else, not good enough. “No, baby. I have a real job now.”
“Oh, yeah. I forgot.” Sydney screwed up her face, feathery dark eyebrows drawing together over her nose. “What was it?”
“I’ll be working for the Whisper Falls newspaper.” She popped the lid on the trunk. Their pitiful possessions were stuffed into two cardboard boxes and a couple of battered suitcases. “I’ll have press passes which means we’ll get to go to lots of fun events for free. Football games, carnivals, plays, all kinds of things.”
“Cool.”
Actually, she was a stringer covering local events for the small paper. The pay was minimal but it was money. Along with the amount her mother left behind—unintentionally, Lana was certain—they should be all right for a while. That is if she could figure out how to write an acceptable article. School hadn’t exactly been her thing, but like singing she could always write. She’d written lots of songs, none of which had been picked up, of course.
Joshua Kendle, the newspaperman on the other end of the telephone, had promised on-the-job training and hired her sight unseen, so how hard could the reporter job be?
Desperate times meant desperate measures. She would personally hand deliver every paper in town—or live in this house—to give Sydney a normal, stable life.
Sydney, slender back bent in half, began pushing a cardboard box across the grass.
“Hold on and I’ll help you.” Lana slammed the trunk of the dependable old Focus with one hand while balancing yet another box on her hip. Though she mourned the loss of her pickup truck, the Focus had been more economical and more sensible.
“I can do it by myself.”
Box on one hip, Lana grabbed the smaller of the suitcases and rolled it, bumping along behind Sydney as she crossed the dry brown grassy distance from the cracked driveway to the porch. Times like these she could use a man around to help out.
Her thoughts shifted again to Davis Turner. She’d had a mild crush on him in high school though he’d never known it. He was an upperclassman, the boy everyone liked because, unlike his sister Jenny, he didn’t have a snarky bone in his body. She wondered if he was still that way.
Time hadn’t damaged his appeal. That was for certain. If anything, maturity had made him more attractive. Very Matt Damon-ish, and hadn’t she always had a crush on the fresh-faced actor?
Lana shook her head in disgust. Men had been her downfall one too many times. Now that she had Sydney to consider and she no longer drank, she wasn’t going down that road again.
Arms full and Sydney nowhere in sight, she kicked the storm door with her boot toe and caught it on the first bounce, thrusting it open with the rolling luggage. The door swung out and back quicker than she’d expected, catching her in the backside and knocking her off balance. The cardboard box tumbled from her arms, spilling its contents. In a juggle to stop her fall, Lana caught her boot on a loose piece of threshold and hit her knee against the suitcase. The rollers spun the bag in front of her, entangled her feet, and down she went.
Dusty carpet came up to kiss her. The musty odor of disuse and grime tickled her nostrils. Inside her childhood home for the first time in thirteen years and here she was sprawled flat on her face. With her underwear spread all over the floor.
Lips twisting wryly, Lana lifted her head and looked around. Crude red graffiti scrawled across the wall directly in front of her. She glanced to the right and then to the left. More graffiti. She shuddered and buried her face in the crook of her arm, breathing deep the lonely, musty smells. The buoyant hope that had propelled her four hundred miles scuttled away with the sound of whatever vermin roamed her childhood home. For the first time since the idea struck, Lana questioned her decision to bring Sydney to this house.
Maybe she should have let Davis have a look around after all.
* * *
Davis slid a pan of lasagna from the oven with a fat maroon oven mitt. The warm oregano scent filled his modern kitchen. He set the casserole dish on an iron trivet, careful to protect the gleaming black granite countertops he’d installed himself. If there was anything Davis enjoyed, it was transforming the looks of a room with tile and granite.
“Come and eat!” he called and was gratified to hear the scramble for the remote as one of the kids shut off the Wii game. “Red velvet cake for dessert.”
Thank the good Lord for a sister who occasionally took pity on him and sent over dessert. He’d learned the basics of cooking but baking was out of his league. Jenny said a trained monkey could learn to follow instructions on the back of a cake box. Which Davis figured disproved the theory of evolution once and for all since he, a human, couldn’t successfully manage the task.
“Did you wash your hands?” he asked when Nathan, forehead sweaty from the active boxing game, plopped into his chair at one side of the polished ash table.
Fingers stretched wide, Nathan held his palms up for inspection. “See? All clean. They smell good, too. Want to sniff?”
Davis scuffed his son’s hair, affection welling in his chest.“ Good enough for me, bud. Who wants to pray?”
“I will,” Paige said, her face suddenly radiant as if transfigured by the idea of talking to God.
That was his daughter. She had an ethereal faith, disconcerting at times when she offered to pray for total strangers. “All right. Go for it.”
They bowed their heads. Davis kept one eye open, trained on Nathan who had a habit of sneaking food into his mouth during prayer. Today, he was as pious as his sister.
“And Jesus, thank you for sending us new neighbors,” Paige was saying. “Bless them and I hope they have plenty to eat, too, just like we do. Do you think they like red velvet cake? Amen.”
Frowning, Davis turned his gaze on his daughter. Her sweet prayers never failed to move and impress him, but today he suspected an ulterior motive. “What was that about?”
“Well.” With studied innocence that he didn’t buy for one second, she took a slice of buttery garlic bread from the offered plate. “The Bible says to love our neighbor. Right?”
Davis looked down at the lasagna dish, suddenly uncomfortable. He suspected where this was headed. “Right.”
“Lana and Sydney are moving in that old haunted house. They might not have any groceries in the fridge yet. They might not even have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches!”
“Or Popsicles,” Nathan said. To Nathan, a Popsicle was one of life’s
