to Houston.
But she had to decide something soon. Her meager savings were dwindling rapidly. Her father would probably help her out, but she hadn’t once asked him for money in six years and didn’t intend to start now. If not for Joey, she’d never have asked if they could stay at his house temporarily.
She went back to sorting the mail, stopping abruptly when she came across a letter from the Florida Parole Commission. A lump of unease clogged her throat. Not bothering with her letter opener, Kaylee ripped open the envelope, pulled out a single sheet of white paper and read the bad news.
A hearing had been scheduled that could result in Rusty Collier being granted parole. The hearing was next week.
Short fingers pulled at her skirt. “Mommy, what’s wrong?”
She stared down at Joey’s dear, little face and tried to think. Even if Rusty did get parole, it didn’t mean he would try to find them. He’d only contacted her twice since Joey had been born, then had given up when she’d asked him to stop calling.
But the very possibility that he might track them down was one more strike against Houston. Never mind that the terms of Rusty’s parole would prohibit him from leaving Florida.
“Nothing’s wrong, honey.” She got down on her haunches and looked into his eyes. “But I have a surprise for you.”
Joey brightened. “M&M’s? A Matchbox car?”
She smoothed the baby-fine hair back from his forehead. It was an unusual shade. Lighter than brown but darker than blond. On more than one occasion, she’d heard it described as rust-colored. Like the hair of the man who’d fathered him.
“Not that kind of a surprise. A bigger one. We’re going to have an adventure.”
“Like Winnie the Pooh?”
A wave of love swept over her like a warm wind. She nodded, glad that Joey didn’t yet consider the beloved character beneath his new maturity level. “Exactly like that. Is there a story called Winnie the Pooh and the Move?”
Skepticism replaced the eagerness on Joey’s face. He shook his head.
“Well, imagine if there were such a story. Imagine if Winnie and Tigger and Christopher Robin moved.”
“In the Hundred Acre Wood?”
“No. Somewhere else. Somewhere better.” Ignoring his continued skepticism, she kept on talking. “It’ll be fun. First we’ll pack up everything, and then we’ll get in the car, just you and me. We’ll drive away from Florida and start over someplace else.”
“When?”
“Soon. Maybe even the day after tomorrow.”
Worry lines appeared between his brows. “How ’bout school?”
Kaylee hadn’t thought of that and did some quick mental calculations. It was mid-May. The last day of school wasn’t even two weeks away. “School’s almost out for the summer, honey. It won’t matter if you finish a couple days early.”
Although Joey didn’t frown, he didn’t smile, either. “Where?”
The lush countryside that had charmed her from the television broadcast played like a travelogue through her mind. She imagined Sofia Donatelli standing among the blooming apple trees, beckoning to her with a smile and a bent finger, and made her decision.
“We’re going to Ohio. A place called McIntosh.”
CHAPTER THREE
MCINTOSH WAS all Kaylee had imagined it would be. The gently sloping hills. The trees bursting with spring color. The open spaces. The crisp blue skies with the promise of summer in the warming air.
Everything would have been perfect if only she had a job, child care and a place to live. Friends in town would have been nice. Family would have been better.
If she hadn’t panicked when she’d gotten that letter from the Florida Parole Commission, she would have formulated a better plan.
At eighteen, she’d thought it exciting to leave home for the unknown. But packing Joey and everything they owned into her car and heading for Ohio hadn’t felt like an adventure. It felt like a risk.
She’d temporarily taken care of housing by getting a room at a hotel on the edge of town, but the most that could be said for it was that it was clean.
Before they could look for a more permanent place to live, she had to find work. And she needed to do it with a six-year-old in tow because there was nobody she could ask to babysit.
She pulled into a parking space on the appropriately named Main Street and got out of the car with Joey, feeling as though she’d been plopped down in the middle of a storybook.
A recent rain had wiped everything clean, causing the spring hues to seem more vibrant. The street was awash with color, the white clouds puffy overhead in a cerulean sky. They walked up a slight hill past a beauty shop, a bookstore, a general store and a shoe-repair shop while she searched for an address.
“Hey, Mom.” Joey pointed a forefinger at a tall tree that sported a profusion of tiny, red flowers against its smooth gray bark. “That tree looks like it has chicken pox.”
“Yeah, sport,” she said. “It does.”
The trees were almost always green in South Florida, the temperature forever warm, the traffic always busy. McIntosh was a welcome change. Thirty seconds could pass before a car went by, but the sidewalks, though not busy, were far from empty.
“Look at that.” Joey sprang away from her, ran to the base of the tree and scooped up something. He came back to her side holding a very small squirming toad covered with warts. “Isn’t he cool?”
She backed up a step. “You better put him down. He’ll give you warts.”
“They said on TV that’s a mitt.”
“A myth,” she corrected. “But even if he won’t give you warts, he looks like a baby. You better let him go so he can find his mother.”
He rolled his eyes. “He was hatched from an egg.”
Kids who watched nature shows on TV were tougher to manipulate, Kaylee thought. “Just let him go, Joey.”
Joey groaned but turned away from her and scooted down. An elderly man who was passing by met Kaylee’s eye and greeted her, something else she wasn’t used to.
She and Joey continued walking until she found the address for Sandusky’s, a small grocery store with a full-service butcher shop. The clerk at the hotel had told her that the store was looking for a cashier.
“Now remember what we talked about, Joey.” She bent down to his level. “You need to be quiet while I’m talking to the people about a job.”
Joey kept by her side while she found a clerk and asked to speak to the owner. He appeared from the back of the shop a few moments later wearing a white butcher’s apron that didn’t detract from his
