away, they steal. Neither one of them’s ever spent a day in school.
Sophy had given her a dry look. Then they’ll keep me alert and aware and on my toes.
Reba had sighed. Oh, Sophy.
Sophy knew what that meant: poor, childless, clueless Sophy. Overprotected, overoptimistic, all sunshine and rainbows. Reba had forgotten the Christmas when Sophy had been threatened by two armed killers in the back room of her shop. She wasn’t Mary Sunshine. She knew bad things happened in the world, and if she could keep a few from happening to Dahlia and Daisy, she would be happy.
“Miss Reba doesn’t like us.” Dahlia sat cross-legged in her chair, all skinny limbs, her usual scowl fading only when she took a bite of ice cream. “She called us Hooligans.”
Heat flooded through Sophy. She’d thought the kids were occupied in the family room with Reba’s kids and her father when her sister had started that conversation. She should have known better. Know-it-all mother-of-four parenting-expert Reba certainly should have.
“She shouldn’t have said that,” Sophy agreed. “It was rude, and it’s not true.”
Dahlia shrugged. “’Course it’s true. Mama says most people don’t like us, and that’s okay because we don’t like ’em back.”
Sophy didn’t know what to say to that, because sadly that was the case. Way back in middle school, when some kids had been giving Maggie a hard time, she’d overheard one teacher ruefully tell another, Everyone has to have someone to look down on. Maggie, it seemed, had gone out of her way to give people reasons to look down on her. Where someone else might have taken it as a challenge to prove them wrong, she’d been in their faces, flaunting every bad decision and behavior.
Granted, she’d never been taught anything different. Her brothers, her father, her uncles...Holigans had made an art of reveling in their reputations.
“I like you,” Sophy said. “And Mom and Dad, and Mr. Ty and Miss Nev and Miss Anamaria.” Lord, it was a short list. It made her heart ache.
Dahlia responded with a disbelieving snort before taking a huge bite of ice cream. On the floor, without lifting her gaze from an ant crawling across the boards, Daisy asked, “What’s a hooligan?”
“Remember, Mama told us. It’s someone who runs wild and breaks all the rules and misbehaves and acts like a heathen.”
“I like running wild and making people shake their heads and say, ‘You ain’t nothin’ but trouble, Daisy Holigan.’” Daisy grinned. “I like being a hooligan.”
Wondering which neighbor or irresponsible family member had told her that, Sophy forced a smile. “You like acting that way. But the secret is, you and Dahlia are clever and smart and capable little girls who can be anything you want to be.”
Another snort from Dahlia, and she’d lost Daisy’s attention completely. The girl had risen to her feet and was avidly staring at the sidewalk—rather, at the dog being walked there.
“Good evening,” the man at the other end of the leash called.
Sophy repeated his greeting as Daisy moved to the second step. “What’s your dog’s name?”
“Daisy! We don’t talk to strangers!” Dahlia whispered fiercely.
“But he’s got a dog.”
Sophy made a mental note to talk to the girls about strangers and ruses involving pets.
“Her name is Bitsy,” the man said. “You want to meet her? If it’s okay with your mom.”
The girls’ voices drowned each other out: “She’s not our mom,” from Dahlia and “Please, can I?” from Daisy.
“Sure.” Sophy followed Daisy into the yard as Bitsy pulled her owner through the gate. Wiggling from nose to tail, the dog sniffed the girl, making her giggle. The sound almost stopped Sophy’s heart. Was that the first time she’d heard Daisy laugh?
The man offered his hand. “Hi. I’m Zeke.”
“Sophy.” She shook his hand, his fingers long and strong, his palm uncallused. She still thought of Copper Lake as a small town, but he was one of the twenty thousand or so residents who weren’t a regular part of her life. He was fair skinned with auburn hair, blue eyes and a grin that had surely charmed more than his share of women. Though only a few inches taller than her, he was powerfully built—broad shoulders, hard muscles, not lean but solid. First impression: he was the sort of guy who could make a woman feel safe.
Though she knew better than to rely on first impressions.
“You picked a perfect evening for sitting on the porch with milk shakes.”
She glanced at the glass in her left hand. “The day’s not over until we’ve had ice cream.”
“A woman after our own hearts. Bitsy loves the ice-cream shop, but we’ve got to be careful. Her vet caught us there once and wasn’t happy.”
A glance at the short distance between the dog’s rounded belly and the ground made that easy to believe. “Cute name,” Sophy said while thinking the opposite. All of the dogs she knew had solid names—that they lived up to—Frank, Misha, Scooter, Elizabeth, Bear. Bitsy sounded so fussy for a grown man’s dog.
Zeke winced. “My daughter named her. Bitsy has a digging fixation, and my ex is a big-time gardener, so Bitsy came to live with me.”
So he was handsome, friendly, liked dogs and was single. Sophy was beginning to wonder how their paths hadn’t crossed before tonight. She thought she’d dated every friendly single guy in town.
Every one of whom had wound up married or engaged. To someone else.
Oh, Sophy. Reba’s sigh echoed in her head. It wasn’t a good time to meet anyone new, particularly anyone handsome with a quick grin. She’d taken on a huge responsibility when she’d volunteered to keep Daisy and Dahlia, and that meant putting her social life on hold.
“Your daughter and Bitsy are lucky you were able to take her.”
“There’s not much I wouldn’t do to make my kid happy...besides get back together with her mom. And I’ve kind of grown attached to the mutt, too.”
A car turned onto Oglethorpe at the nearest cross street, and they both glanced in that direction. The engine made a low growl, one that spoke of power tightly reined in. Sophy wasn’t much of a car person, but she could tell the vehicle was older than she was, was meticulously maintained and pretty much defined the phrase muscle car.
And it was painted a gorgeous deep metallic red. Her favorite color.
The air shimmered and the ground vibrated as the car slowly passed. Okay, maybe that was a little fanciful, but it felt that way. When it was gone and she turned back to Zeke, he was crouching on the ground beside Bitsy, head ducked, coaxing her to offer Daisy her paw for a handshake.
When the dog finally obeyed, he stood. “We’d better head home. She always wants a treat when she shakes, and I didn’t bring any. It’s been nice meeting you, Miss Daisy, Miss Dahlia...Miss Sophy.”
“Nice
