Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
One
Adam swiped his hand over the flat, bristly top of hair the color of mahogany. It was a classic gesture of frustration for a retired military man used to sweeping a service cap off his head. He pushed his shoulders back and took a deep breath, trying to keep his voice carefully reasonable. Mrs. Godiva took offense at the tone of command, and pride would not allow him to succumb to the desperation of pleading.
“Now let’s just talk this out calmly,” he said. “I’m sure the snow in your slippers was just a little prank. They wouldn’t understand the…the depth of your shock. They’re only three, after all.”
“And wouldn’t have dreamed this up all by themselves!” the woman retorted, drawing herself up to her full rawboned height. “That Wendy is behind this! She had those scamps put snow in my slippers because I put her in the corner this morning for refusing to eat her prunes.”
“Wendy doesn’t like prunes, Mrs. Godiva,” Adam pointed out tersely. “I’ve asked you time and time again not to—”
“Prunes are good for them!” the middle-aged widow insisted. “If you’d just let me guide you, we’d have both fared better, but like your daughter, you just won’t listen to reason! Well, I’ve had it. Not only did she put her little brothers up to filling my brand-new house slippers with snow, she then cried out for me in the night, knowing my feet had only just warmed and that I’d thrust them trustingly into…into…” Her upper lip trembled in outrage.
Adam bowed his head, a dull ache setting in behind his eyes. She was undoubtedly correct. Everyone knew that cold feet were the bane of Godiva’s existence, but the twins would not have dreamed up this particular act of vengeance—and it was vengeance, Wendy-style. Still, the blasted woman knew that Wendy loathed cooked prunes. Adam sighed.
“Couldn’t we just forget about this?”
“We could not!”
“I’ll make certain that it never happens again.”
“Ha! You have no more control over that child than you have over the weather! It’s beyond me how a man with your experience of command could allow that trio of miscreants to rule this…this house of chaos!”
“Mrs. Godiva, they lost their mother only eighteen months ago—”
“And you’ve lost seven nannies in that time!”
“Six,” he corrected offhandedly.
“Seven!” she snapped, dipping low to grasp the handles of her bags. “You may forward my pay to my sister’s in Minneapolis. I believe you have the address!” With that, she turned, struggled furiously with the handles of her luggage and the doorknob, and marched out into the night.
“Mrs. Godiva!” Adam called after her. “At least wait until the morning!”
His plea fell on her ears with no more effect than the fat flakes of snow that melted into the garish scarf tied about her head or the icy crust that crunched beneath her sturdy feet, presumably warm inside her clunky fur-lined boots. Within seconds, he heard the muted sounds of her car doors opening and closing, then the engine being gunned as headlights swung in an angry arc over the drifts of snow banking the drive.
Adam closed the door quietly, resisting the urge to lay his head against it and moan, but only just. Behind him, he heard the bumps and rustles of little bodies moving, encased in flannel pajamas. His spine seemed to straighten of its own accord, and his shoulders to level themselves and draw back. He executed a turn with all the precision of a soldier on review and scowled down at the three little faces that peeked around the corner of the foyer and the front hall.
“Is she gone?” Wendy whispered. Her freckled nose wrinkled in ill-disguised hope as her chubby fingers pulled at a thin reddish brown braid.
“She is.”
“For good?” Robbie asked, his voice all little-boy innocence, the illusion abetted by the tousle of curly blond hair around his plump, squarish face.
“Afraid so—no thanks to you three.”
Ryan, a slightly smaller version of his minutes-older brother, flashed a triumphant smile at Wendy before breaking out in whoops of sheer delight. Instantly the other two joined him, all attempts at feigning regret abandoned. Adam rolled his eyes, and in that short space of time, they bolted down the hall and erupted into the living room, where he found them, seconds later, gleefully jumping on the furniture.
“Gone! Gone! The witch is gone!”
Adam took a militant posture in the middle of the room. It was a cold, colorless room, one he particularly disliked, but in all the months since his wife’s death, he had made no effort to change it. Nor did he intend to. “That’s enough!” he barked in his best commander’s voice.
Robbie turned an awkward cartwheel on the couch and tumbled to the floor with a thunk, howls of glee instantly becoming cries of pain and shock. Ryan crawled down to join him, giggling, and Robbie abruptly switched to laughter, one hand rubbing the back of his head as he sat up. Wendy ignored them all, dancing in place on the seat of an armchair. “Gone! Gone! The old prune’s gone!”
The boys laughed all the harder at that, while Adam’s face turned red and his temper frayed. “Stop that this instant, and go to bed!” What his bark had not accomplished, his roar did, as all three children went still and silent, their attention at last on their father. Not that they actually obeyed. The boys merely lay down on the floor and regarded him curiously, while Wendy slid down into a sitting position on the chair, her face set mutinously.
“I hated her. She was mean and ugly and—”
“You did everything in your power to drive her away!” he accused. “You know we need the help, but still you—”
“We don’t need no help!” Wendy cried in a thin voice. “Mommy always took care of us with just Cook.”
“Cook is part-time!” Adam exclaimed. “And I am not Mommy! I have to make a living for us, I can’t stay home all day long to take care of you!”
“Mommy did!”
“Because I was off making us a living!”
“In the army,” Ryan said accusingly, and something in his tone robbed Adam of all his anger.
“That’s right,” he muttered, swamped by the odd confusion that always came with that hint of resentment. Diana had never seemed to mind his career with the military. She had, in fact, on occasion during a long leave, seemed anxious to send him on his way. Maybe that was why he had always felt relieved to go. Maybe the kids had sensed his relief and felt
