“what with all that turkey and mashed potatoes you put away.”
Grinning, her father sidled up to Didi and slipped his arms around her waist, making her giggle like a girl. “But there’s always room for apple pie…”
Faith turned away, nearly overcome with annoyance that her life had turned into some sad-sack country song. She fixed Darryl a plate of pie—a slice each of apple and pumpkin, like always; the man was as predictable as the moon—then cut herself another piece of pumpkin, just to be sociable. But when she started out of the kitchen, she saw he’d hobbled back to the dining table instead of staying in the den. He glanced up at her, his smile stopping short of those melted-chocolate eyes that could still rattle her to her toes, nodding and saying “Thank you” when she set his plate in front of him. She grabbed Sierra as the boisterous three-year-old flew past, plopping her back into her booster seat at right angles to her daddy; Faith’s heart ached at Darryl’s barely suppressed wince when the child let out a shriek of protest.
“Sierra, no,” she said firmly, which was met with a tiny glower. Then, to Darryl: “If you want, I can give the squirts their pie in the kitchen—”
“I’m hardly so bad off I need to be quarantined from my own kids.”
“That’s not what I meant and you know it,” she said in a level voice, strapping Sierra in. Not that it would do much good, since her youngest daughter had figured out how to spring herself a year ago. “I was only trying to make things easier for you, that’s all.” He stiffened, not looking at her. “You know I hate being coddled,” he said, his voice even deeper than usual.
Faith shoved her hair out of her eyes with the back of her wrist, thinking it was a good thing she had a hair appointment coming up, only to remember she probably shouldn’t spend the money on a haircut, considering. “Yes, I do. But you’ve been working your butt off since the day we got married, with nothin’ even remotely resembling a real break in twelve years. So, since nothing I say seems to get through, maybe that tornado was God’s way of tellin’ you to ease up for a minute.”
A bite of apple pie halfway to his mouth, Darryl gaped at her from underneath his long, dark lashes. “My business is a pile of rubble—a business that supports you and the kids, in case you’ve forgotten—and I can’t even pick up any freelance work long as I’ve got this dumb cast on my arm, and you’re tellin’ me you think that’s God’s work?”
They’d never exactly seen eye to eye on spiritual matters, and her bringing up the subject now probably hadn’t been the smartest move she could have made. However, his reaction jolted something inside her brain.
Duty. The word stuck to the roof of her mouth like stale peanut butter. A word that more than defined the man sitting in front of her. Not for a second had Darryl hesitated asking her to marry him when she’d told him she was pregnant, or even considered shirking the first of what would become a hundred obligations. Now he struggled under their accumulated weight like that Greek dude with the world on his shoulders.
She crossed her arms. “You telling me everything isn’t going to be okay?”
Everything in his posture told her she’d just stepped over a line she hadn’t fully realized was there until this moment.
“Of course not,” he said, his voice controlled, even as the veins stood out on the back of the hand clutching his fork. “I’ll get us out of this, somehow….”
He started when she leaned over and laid a hand on his arm; when he looked up at her his eyes were loaded with suspicion. “We’re in this together, Darryl. We’ll work it out together.”
After a glance at Sierra, happily smushing her pumpkin pie with her baby fork, he looked back at Faith, every muscle in his face sharper, harder. “And I don’t want you worrying about this, you hear?”
Lord help her, for a long time she’d found his macho protectiveness endearing. Comforting. And heaven knows, a major turn-on. That quality, perhaps more than any other, was why she was here. But a dozen years, five kids and a close, personal relationship with reality had a way of changing a person’s perspective. Especially when that person’s husband had a head harder than granite.
Still, she snorted a laugh. “Short of giving me a lobotomy, ain’t gonna happen. So deal with it.”
They stared each other down for several seconds, then she turned to call the rest of the children to the table, running smack into her father’s questioning gaze.
“Faith? Everything okay?”
As she’d done for the past twelve years, she tacked on a bright smile and said, “Nothing I can’t handle,” because she’d put out her right eye before admitting a few ancient concerns had come back to take a big old chunk out of her rapidly expanding butt.
Chapter 2
In his pajama bottoms, Darryl stood in his and Faith’s tiny master bathroom, glowering at his banged-up reflection in the medicine chest mirror. At his side, Dot, a young brindle boxer some fool had abandoned at the station a year or so ago, stood with her front paws on the sink, regarding him with bug-eyed apology—her standard expression—as if his injuries were somehow her fault. Faith was of the opinion that the dog suffered from low self-esteem, although whether brought on or exacerbated by her abandonment, she couldn’t say.
He glowered some more—how the hell was he supposed to change this bandage? Discovery Number Twenty-Two about having one hand out of commission: he could get the old bandage off, but no way could he get the clean one on. While he was contemplating this new aggravation, Jake shoved his way into the little room—already crowded with Darryl and the dog—and banged up the toilet seat to pee like he’d been at a keg party.
“Heather’s in the other bathroom,” the gap-toothed boy said by way of explanation, knocking the seat back down and flushing, but only after Darryl glared at him. “A body could ’splode waitin’ on her to get out.”
“Yeah, I know how that goes. Put the lid down, too, buddy.”
That earned Darryl a pained look. “What for? Whoever uses it next only has to lift it again.”
“I know, but your mother has a hissy whenever she finds the seat up. You really want to deal with that?”
Jake slammed down the lid, the effect muffled by the fluffy, dark-green toilet seat cover. One thing about Faith—she’d always kept the house looking nice without resorting to lots of flowers and ruffles and crap like a lot of other women. The kid plopped his skinny behind on the seat and leaned his elbows on the edge of the sink, frowning up at Darryl’s stitches. Dot got down, wriggling her head onto the boy’s lap to get her floppy ears scratched, groaning in what Darryl assumed was ecstasy. “You look like Frankenstein or somethin’. Does it hurt?”
Only when he moved. Or breathed.
“Let’s just say—” Darryl raised the one arm that was working and gingerly lifted his hair away from the wound “—it’s an experience I’d’ve been more than happy to have lived without.”
The boy seemed to think on this for a second, then said, “You know what would be really cool? If you could come to school for show-and-tell—”
“Jake Michael Andrews!” Faith said from the bathroom doorway. “Didn’t I put you to bed ten minutes ago?”
“I
