girls to raise—little girls whose mother had deserted Steve and abandoned her babies shortly after their birth.
No. Steve could not be in heaven. Barbara had just talked to him this morning. She locked her gaze with her husband’s, praying he would put her worst fears to rest. “John?”
Fresh tears coursed down his cheeks. “Our Steve’s gone. He’s been…murdered,” he croaked. “Our boy has gone Home, and the girls…the girls need us, Barb, now more than ever.”
Pain seared the very essence of her spirit. The look of absolute grief in her husband’s gaze melted the wall of denial protecting her heart, and she rushed to embrace him. With one arm around Melanie, she pulled Jessie against her, too, as her soul clung to her faith in God—faith that would somehow have to sustain them all.
Late Saturday afternoon, Judy Roberts quickly scanned the empty beauty salon and searched for signs of any cleanup task she might have missed. Satisfied that all was ready for Tuesday morning when her shop would reopen, she flipped the light switch and watched each of the green neon letters in Pretty Ladies sputter and flicker into darkness.
She let out a sigh and arched her back while every muscle in her legs and feet protested against each of the fifty-seven years she had spent on this earth, especially the decades she had spent as a hairdresser turning other women into pretty ladies. “Time for this pretty tired lady to drag herself home,” she mumbled. She opened the door, turned, and locked the door behind her, stepping from the relative comfort of the air-conditioned shop into a never-ending wall of hot, humid air.
Fortunately, home was only a few blocks away. She worked her way down Welles Avenue and eased through the influx of Saturday-night diners who crowded the brick sidewalk en route to a host of new eateries that were part of the trendy “new” Welleswood. There were some families out tonight, but mostly couples and mostly strangers to her, she noticed, and quietly turned off the avenue toward the row house she called home.
Row house. She chuckled to herself. Newcomers called the vintage row houses built during the Great Depression town houses now, but more than the name had changed. Prices of these homes had nearly quadrupled in the years since she and her husband, Frank, had purchased theirs some thirty-five years ago. With Frank gone four years now, God rest his soul, she was barely able to afford the taxes, but she did own the house, free and clear. Any plans she had for spending her golden years comfortably, unfortunately, had died with him, along with the hope she might one day be reconciled with their only daughter, Candy, or see her grandson, Brian. She stopped at the corner to let the traffic pass and patted her thigh. “Looks like I’ll have to struggle through, best as I can on my own. Don’t need much for myself. Good thing, too,” she mumbled before crossing the street.
Dog tired, she got a boost of energy as she started down the block where she lived and thought about taking a shower. A long, refreshing shower. Then a quick bite to eat and off to bed where she could fall asleep watching television, but only after she had set the alarm so she would not oversleep and miss Sunday services. Walking against the glare of the late-afternoon sun, she could just make out her row house on the corner at the end of the block, and it appeared that one of the neighborhood children was using the railing on her front porch like a balance beam.
Again.
Another boost of energy hastened her steps, and her purse swayed faster as she hurried toward home. She loved the neighborhood children. She did not mind if they played on her front lawn or climbed the backyard fence to retrieve a lost ball. She even let them skateboard in the driveway along the side of her house, since she could not afford the insurance for a car and the driveway served no real purpose for her.
Her front porch railing, however, was definitely off-limits. Visions of one of the children falling off the railing now and getting hurt sent her scurrying as fast as her tired legs could carry her. From behind, the boy only appeared to be five or six years old. Didn’t anyone keep track of their little ones any more?
“You there! Get down! You’ll really get hurt if you fall,” she cried as she passed the front of the house next door.
If the boy heard her, he ignored her and continued his daredevil antics by leaping from the front railing to the side one. He landed hard, bobbed a bit, then pitched headlong off the railing toward the driveway below.
Shock halted her steps and her heart skipped a beat, but instead of a scream of terror or the horrible sound of his little body striking the asphalt driveway, she heard a man’s harsh voice. “Do it again, and this time, try harder so you don’t fall!”
Her eyes widened. Her pulse quickened, and she charged past her front lawn, ready to give a good tongue-lashing to the idiot of a man who was letting the boy use her front porch like an old-fashioned playground. She rounded the corner of the yard and faced the man who was lifting the boy back up to the railing, but the diatribe she had planned died before she could utter a single word.
The man was indeed an idiot.
He was also her son-in-law.
Was the boy with him her grandson, Brian? She had not seen the boy for four years, and he had only been a few months old when Duke and Candy had first moved to California with him. Her heart leaped with hope. Was Candy here, too? Was she inside, ready to reconcile, or at least explain why she had gone back to California after that terrible scene at Frank’s funeral?
“Duke?” was all Judy could manage to say.
At the sound of his name, he turned his head, gave her a relieved smile, and pulled the boy down to stand on the ground beside him. At six foot four inches and weighing close to three-hundred pounds, Duke was a massive man. His arms bulged with muscles covered with tattoos that stretched to his knuckles, and he sported half a dozen earrings in his left ear. In the distance, at the far end of the driveway, he had parked his Harley.
He nodded at her. “Me and Brian been waitin’ awhile. Just drove cross-country, and I’m plain tuckered out.”
She swallowed hard and tried not to imagine her son-in-law driving her grandson cross-country on a motorcycle. She approached her grandson and crouched down to gaze at him face-to-face. A layer of dirt and grime covered his features and the dark curls on his head were matted, but the blue eyes twinkling back at her were the same color as Frank’s. “Do you know who I am?” she asked.
“You’re Grandmom,” he answered, squaring his little shoulders. “Dad told me.”
Duke nudged the boy with his knee. “Go on. Give her a kiss hello, boy. Time’s a-wastin’.”
Brian flinched, but obeyed his father and planted a kiss on her chin. “Hi, Grandmom.”
Judy closed her eyes for a moment and melted with joy. She kissed him back. “Hi, yourself. Is your mommy here, too?”
“Candy’s not here. She’s back in the hospital. Again.” Duke spat the words without giving Brian a chance to respond.
Concerned, Judy stood up, but before she could ask for a full explanation, Duke shoved an envelope into her hand. “What’s this?”
“Papers. Legal papers. You’ll be needin’ ’em if you’re gonna raise him. I can’t tell you exactly where Candy is stayin’, ’cause I don’t know, so don’t bother tryin’ to grill me.”
She turned the envelope over and over in her hand. “I don’t understand. If Candy is back in rehab, then why—”
“I’m
