there was nothing she wanted more than to be Ricky’s mother, she couldn’t shake the feeling that every step she took in this unfamiliar land called motherhood was like walking in a field riddled with pools of quicksand. Any second now, she expected to take the wrong step and be sucked under.
There were other times, though, when gazing down into the happy little face that seemed the perfect combination of Mike’s features and her own, that she felt she had to be doing something right because just look at how Ricky was turning out. He was wonderfully well adjusted.
Of course, Cris was the first one to point out that she wasn’t doing it alone. She had a fabulous support system that consisted of her father and her sisters, even Wyatt and his late father, Dan, whom they had all referred to as “Uncle Dan” even though he really wasn’t related to them. They all doted on Ricky, filling his world with love and watching over him to make sure that no harm ever came to him.
Every night, without fail, Cris thanked God for her family and for bringing Ricky into her life. Without the boy, she didn’t know how she would have survived the sudden, heart-destroying loss of her husband.
“Hey, you didn’t tell me you had a picture,” Stevi cried, pretending her feelings were hurt as she walked into the kitchen.
Of the four sisters, only Stevi had artistic abilities—not to mention occasionally the artistic temperament that went with them. She was creating recognizable drawings by the time she was four and was still inclined to find an artistic outlet for her talent rather than joining Alex and Cris in making Ladera-by-the-Sea her life’s work.
“That’s ’cause I wanted to show Mama first,” Ricky informed his aunt with all the confidence of a child who believed himself to be the well deserving center of his family’s universe. To everyone’s credit—including his own—he was neither spoiled nor truly self-centered. Kindness came naturally to him, tempering most things that he said. “But it’s okay for you to look now, ’cause I showed it to her.”
He unfolded the drawing and held it up for his mother to see. Stevi and Alex shifted over toward Cris to view it, as well.
“Do you like it?” Ricky asked, his blue eyes eager and shining as he looked at his mother. “It’s us,” he added, just in case she’d missed what he said about it being a drawing of his family.
How silly, Cris chided herself, to get choked up over a crayon drawing, even a good crayon drawing, depicting a little boy holding what she could only assume was his mother’s hand. The two figures were surrounded by three female figures and a tall, thin man, who, because Ricky had used a gray crayon for the hair, had to be his grandfather. This was their family, Cris thought, the way her son saw all of them.
Close.
Hovering over this gathering was what appeared to be a large, unusual-looking bird. Cris glanced at her son. Approval and maternal pride shone in her eyes.
“It’s beautiful, honey.”
Ricky nodded, as if he had expected that response. Proudly, he acted like a tour guide for the drawing. “That’s you, Mama, and me. You’re holding my hand—”
“I can see that,” Cris said, relieved that she had correctly assumed as much and sounded believable when she commented on it.
“—’cause I’m letting you,” Ricky added by way of a narrative. “But I am a big boy.”
Cris knew that was her son’s way of making sure she understood he considered himself independent. “Yes, you are,” she agreed.
“And that’s Aunt Alex, and Aunt Stevi and Aunt Andy,” he continued, pointing his finger at each figure. All three had blond hair, just as he and his mother did, but he had dressed them in different colors and had managed to capture the height difference. “And that’s Grandpa,” he explained, jabbing a small finger at the other male on the page. “And that’s Daddy,” Ricky concluded, pointing to the winged creation just above his self-portrait.
“You drew your daddy as a bird?” Alex asked, trying to follow her nephew’s reasoning.
“Not a bird,” Ricky said indignantly. “He’s an angel.”
“Of course he is. Can’t you see that?” Stevi deliberately took her nephew’s side, pretending that Alex had to be blind not to see the figure for who it was.
Cris laughed as she bent over to hug her son, delighted that he thought his father was watching over him, the way she’d explained when Ricky had asked her to tell him about his father.
“Yes, he is, Ricky. Don’t mind your aunt Alex, she’s not good at seeing what’s right in front of her unless someone points it out.”
Alex knew Cris was referring to the antagonistic relationship Alex and Wyatt had had on the surface for years before Alex had realized how deep the feelings ran. Because Ricky was present, she decided not to comment on Cris’s barely veiled allusion.
“You gonna put that on the ’frigerator?” Ricky asked, eagerly shifting from foot to foot as he watched his mother’s face.
“Yes, I am.” She held out the drawing, taking note of its size. It was bigger than most of the drawings he brought home. “But you realize that means I have to take down another one of your drawings,” she reminded Ricky. “We’ve only go so much room on the refrigerator—even if it is industrial-sized,” she added, winking at him affectionately.
The boy nodded solemnly. “I know, Mama. I’m not a dummy-head.”
“Ah, a new term from the playground I see,” Cris noted with a good-natured sigh. He seemed to have a new addition to his vocabulary at least once a week. Usually not of the best variety. “No, sweetheart, you’re not a ‘dummy-head’ and I hope you don’t call anyone else that,” she added, eyeing the boy.
Silky straight blond hair swung as Ricky shook his head in firm denial. “No, ’cause you said not to call people names even if they call me those names. Right?” he asked.
“Right. Because that makes you the bigger man,” Cris concluded firmly.
An unexpected little frown formed on Ricky’s forehead as he said, “Teacher says I’m not a man.”
Alex ruffled her nephew’s hair and laughed affectionately. “Your teacher doesn’t know you the way we do,” she assured the boy. “You’re more of a man than some guys three times your age.”
From the look on Ricky’s face, her nephew clearly saw no reason to contest that. He beamed at her as though she had just lifted a bad spell he’d been forced to endure for the sake of peace and quiet.
“You hungry, big guy?” Cris asked.
“Uh-huh,” he answered, once again bobbing his head.
“Okay, let’s see what we can find for you to eat,” Cris suggested.
As she slipped her arm around his shoulders, ready to usher him to the inn’s kitchen, Shane McCallister emerged from the section of the inn temporarily curtained off with sheets of plastic. They hung from the ceiling and went all the way to the floor to keep dust spreading to the rest of the inn at a minimum.
Behind the plastic sheets,
