hardly know the girl.”
“Yes, you do. You knew exactly what she needed from the minute you told her about those birds out there.”
Shanna looked down at her coffee. “Mrs. Rowan, I don’t think we should discuss Jenni or how her mother treated her. I’m…I’m only an employee and in a few weeks I’ll be gone.”
Kate shot her a look. “Did you know she’s barely spoken more than a handful of sentences since her parents died?”
“Michael—Doctor Rowan mentioned it the other day.” When he was giving me hot looks and touching my earrings.
“Did he also mention she has nightmares?”
“No.”
“She wakes up and thinks she sees Leigh in the doorway.”
Shanna’s eyes sought out the tiny form sitting twenty feet away, chatting to Octavia.
“He doesn’t know how to deal with it,” Kate went on. “He’s had a lot of…trouble getting over—” her lips tightened “—Leigh’s death. They were attached at the hip. Jen is the spitting image of Leigh as a child, you know. Though, God forgive me for saying it, she doesn’t have Leigh’s personality. My granddaughter was excessively driven and obsessed with the land. Anything else was a side note. Including her daughter. Shocked us all when she got pregnant. She wasn’t prone to wanting children. Bob was, though. So they had Jenni. To soften the marriage, I suspect.” She blew a gusty breath. “It worked.”
“Mrs. Rowan…”
“Kate.”
“Kate. Why are you telling me this? You don’t even know who I am.”
The elder woman harumphed. “For some reason unbeknownst to any of us, you’ve become the light at the end of a very dark tunnel for my great-granddaughter. Since she met you, your name comes into every second sentence she speaks.” Again, Kate looked toward Jenni. “She’s been a quiet child all her life. When her parents died…well.” She looked at Shanna. “Jen’s never taken to anyone so, not even me.”
“I—”
“Oh, don’t fuss. That wasn’t meant to be nasty. I’ve got more than enough of Leigh in me not to be jealous. Though, in my old age I’ve realized something she hadn’t yet learned.” She stirred a spoon in her unadorned coffee and gave Shanna a stern look. “Happiness counts above all else.”
Shanna remained silent. Jenni sang in the sunshine. How could you not have been happy with your baby, Leigh?
Kate lifted her mug to her lips and rested the rim there, her wintry eyes direct. “You’d be a fine match for my grandson. Oh, now, don’t worry,” she said when Shanna almost choked on her coffee. “It’s just an observation.”
Shanna dabbed her mouth with a napkin. “Is this what you meant by putting the run on your employees?”
Kate threw back her head and laughed. “Honey, you are definitely a delight. No, all my other employees were men and as far as I know not one was prone to wearing a skirt.”
“Well, that’s a relief to hear.”
Kate sobered. “I never say anything I don’t mean. And, I’ve never told another soul what I’m about to tell you. The women my grandson dates are as deep as a bale of hay.”
I don’t want to know this. Really, I do not.
“All right,” Kate said, acknowledging Shanna’s discomfort. “Forget Michael. By the way, you make a decent cup of coffee.” She slanted a look over her shoulder. “And keep a clean house.”
“I’m having my brother paint the walls.”
The old woman examined the kitchen and muttered, “Leigh could’ve taken a lesson from you. If it wasn’t for Bob, they would’ve lived like pigs in mud.”
Pigs in mud? “Kate—”
But Michael’s grandmother went on, as if she sat in the room alone. “He was always finding dust bunnies under the furniture. It’s a wonder little Jenni made it through the crawling stage without gagging on one.”
Shanna’s jaw dropped. Michael’s sister had raised her baby in filth? “But the house is impeccable, the barn spotless.”
An impatient wave. “Michael. After Leigh died he spent every spare hour scrubbing, polishing, waxing. He couldn’t handle Jenni living in that kind of dirt any more. As for the barn—that was Leigh’s love. The outdoors, the animals, the farm. Down there everything was in its place.”
Had Leigh loved her daughter at all? Been concerned about whether or not the child felt safe, warm, cared for?
Kate said, “Don’t get me wrong. She loved Jenni. She just wasn’t domestically inclined or the mothering type. Bob did most of the parenting. He was crazy about the child.”
Shanna mulled over the information. When she met Jenni, the child had been…
Clean? Michael’s doing.
Afraid of affection? Shanna’s gratitude kiss proved that.
Bob had loved his daughter. Hugs and kisses came from the man in Jenni’s life. No wonder the poor elf was lost.
“You see where I’m coming from now?” the old lady asked.
Yes, she did. “It’s hard not to love her,” Shanna murmured.
Restless, she rose and refilled their mugs. Jenni, Jason and herself, a trio with mothers who would have benefitted from Love-Your-Children 101. And your childhood, Michael?
“Were they close, Doctor Rowan and his sister?” she asked before she could stop herself.
Kate grunted. “They were twins.” As if that explained it all. “For the most part they were inseparable, as twins are wont to be, but especially so when Davey, my son, and his wife went on their…adventures. The kids would sleep in the same room the nights their parents weren’t here. Leigh was scared of the dark.”
“Adventures?”
The old woman batted the air. “Another story.” She picked up her coffee, blew on it then drank.
Shanna’s turned cold.
The sweet sound of Jenni’s singing warmed the room.
Kate pushed her mug aside. “About a year after Davey and his wife died, the twins took to different interests. Leigh got caught up in the farm and the animals and Michael…” She patted the cane in her lap. “We really didn’t know what was on his mind. It wasn’t until he went to college that we found out he wanted to go into medicine. He…he was the first in our family to get a degree, you know.”
“Kate, I think—”
“Think I’m a gossip, don’t you, girl?” Behind lenses, her eyes—Michael’s eyes—were magnified.
“Not
