snatched the check from his hand. “You can’t be late anymore. Not you or your money.”
“Not now, honey,” Bob said. “Let’s get Zach to bed. He’s got school tomorrow.”
Dylan hadn’t forgotten it was a school night, but... “It’s only eight thirty.”
Bob sighed, as if he knew better what Zach needed. He walked toward the house with Dylan’s kid.
Eileen’s mouth worked in that way it did when she was having trouble swallowing back bitter words. She was rarely successful. She spewed words at him, as sour as a green cherry, as hard as its pit. “You need to do better, Dylan. Or things are going to change.”
Like things hadn’t changed when she left him and took his son away? How could they get any worse?
Bob stopped and turned to face Dylan. Zach murmured something. Bob murmured back, stroking Zach’s little shoulders. The cold fist in Dylan’s gut expanded. The other man met Dylan’s gaze over the hood of the truck.
The cold fist sucker-punched Dylan from the inside out.
He knew how things could get worse.
They could take Zach from him. Not for Saturdays. Not for Wednesday nights.
Forever.
“DO YOU KNOW how hard it is to see the screen and type with you in my lap?” Kathy’s arms bent as she tried to navigate the online university’s website around Abby’s sleek body.
They sat at a desk in her bedroom. Growing up, it had been Flynn’s room—geek command central and off-limits to Kathy. The posters of Batman, “World of Warcraft” and Bill Gates may have come down, but it still felt like her brother’s room. Navy plaid wallpaper and tired green shag contrasted against her teal leopard-print comforter and pink slippers.
When she’d gone into rehab, Grandpa Ed was still alive. Flynn had been staying in this room, and so Truman had been put across the hall in Kathy’s childhood space. After Grandpa’s death, Flynn and Becca had married and then moved into the master bedroom. And so Kathy took this room—not wanting to upset Truman by asking him to switch spaces.
The dog turned and licked Kathy’s cheek, as if to say get on with it. While outside her window, birds sang a happy good-morning. She was convinced there was one bird that had designated itself as her alarm clock. Regular as a rooster, that little guy. Tweet-tweet-tweet as the sun approached the horizon.
“I’m just not excited about a business degree,” she whispered to Abby. Accounting, economics, business law. Ugh. But Flynn insisted that she needed a college diploma to rebuild her life, and he said she could do anything with a business degree. Lacking a clear idea of what she wanted to do with her life, Kathy had bent to her brother’s will. She’d get a business degree to prove to him she was serious about creating a solid future for Truman. If only she could make herself complete the college application form.
The dog faced the screen again, her black fur soft against Kathy’s arms. She smelled of freshly dug dirt and green grass...and freedom.
More than happy to postpone signing up for college courses, Kathy gave the dog a kibble from a teacup on her desk, then scratched Abby behind her pointy ears. “You’re just here for the food.” She didn’t much care why Abby kept her company. She enjoyed the affection, even if the conversation was one-sided.
Her bedroom door swung open. Truman’s gaze swept the carpet and corners of the room. “Abby?”
Truman never came in here. He barely acknowledged Kathy’s existence. She couldn’t have moved if someone had shouted, “Fire!”
He finally noticed where his dog was. “Abby.” Disappointment. Betrayal. Truman’s cheeks flushed. He patted his jeans-clad thigh urgently. “Abby, come.”
Neither Kathy nor Abby moved. In fact, the dog gazed back at Kathy, as if encouraging her to speak. And what would she say? Abby sighed and stared at the computer screen again. Or, more accurately, at the teacup below the computer screen.
“Tru.” His name came out as deep and hoarse as the bullfrogs’ songs down by the Harmony River. Kathy stared in the vicinity of her son, cleared her throat and tried again. “I like your T-shirt.”
It was a green-and-purple tie-dyed shirt with a black running-horse weather vane screen-printed on his chest.
He gazed up and down the hall, either looking for support or making sure no one caught him talking to her. “The mayor gave this to me. It’s Uncle Flynn’s winery logo.”
Of course it was. Everyone in Harmony Valley was embracing the winery and its attempts to revitalize the town. But hello, people, should her son be wearing a shirt advertising alcohol?
It doesn’t say Harmony Valley Vineyards, said the voice of reason.
It promotes underage drinking, said the fearful side of her, the one that had been riding shotgun on her shoulder since rehab.
“It’s just a shirt,” Kathy said defensively, bringing her internal argument into the open.
Truman gave her the my-mom-has-lost-it look. He lost his patience and raised his voice. “Abby. Come here. Now.”
Abby jumped from Kathy’s lap and trotted to Truman, circling him and nudging him inside the bedroom. Her herding instincts were to unite, not divide.
“I don’t have time for games,” Truman grumbled, making his escape. “It’s time for lessons.”
Kathy listened to their footsteps move into the kitchen, made immobile by the fact that that was the most successful interaction she’d had with Truman since she’d come home a few weeks ago.
Grandpa Ed used to say, “First the battle, then the war.”
She stood and did a battle victory dance.
“Smooth moves.” Flynn stood in the doorway with that older-brother grin that little sisters hated. “A bit ‘Put a Ring on It’ and a bit ‘Harlem Shake.’ What are we celebrating?”
“Shh.” Kathy yanked him inside and closed the door. “Truman talked to me.”
They high-fived.
“How’re you feeling today, Kathy?” His grin faded. His gaze took inventory.
“Stop. You aren’t my sponsor.” She widened her eyes and breathed on him. “I’m sober.” No bloodshot eyes. No fire-starting breath.
“You’d tell me if you were tempted, right?” He asked her that every morning, but there was an urgency to his question that hadn’t been there in the weeks since she’d come home.
Had she sleepwalked to a liquor store? She thought not. “Of course I’d tell you if I was tempted.” Nope. If she was tempted, she wouldn’t tell him. Not in a thousand years. He’d try to lock her up in rehab quicker than you could say, “Reboot my computer,” and she’d lose what little ground
