name. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear anything she had to say about children. “And what profound statement did Saint Allison contribute?”
Ellie gave him a strange look. “She pointed out that children don’t always understand that you can love more than one person at a time,” Ellie said, “or that there are different kinds of love.”
Colt conceded that she had a point.
“The main thing to remember is that you’re the adult. You set the rules and the tone from here on out. If they don’t follow them, then there are consequences. And stick with those consequences!” she added, giving his hand a light slap. “Don’t let them butter you up to get on your good side. Believe me, they might not like it now, but they’ll thank you later.”
Boundaries, again. He blew out a deep breath and said the word aloud. It tasted like ashes in his mouth.
“What?”
“Your sister claims that children need boundaries, that they ache for boundaries.”
Ellie smiled. “She’s right. They do.”
“It’s a tall order, Ellie,” he said, rare uncertainty in his eyes.
“Perhaps,” she agreed, nodding, “but there’s far more to being a parent than doing your part in their conception. It means molding and shaping them into good people and productive citizens, and giving them the necessary skills to cope with whatever comes along. With God’s help, you can do this.”
God. Colt’s relationship with the Almighty was a topic he didn’t want to address. He’d once been a devoted Christian, but when God hadn’t answered his prayers to spare Patrice, Colt had turned his back on everything spiritual, though he still tried to live a decent, honest life.
“Who would have believed I’d be raising a couple of kids alone when Patrice and I got married?”
Who would have thought that circumstance would force him to cross the boundary into a woman’s role? But someone had to.
* * *
Colt thought about his conversation with Ellie all the way home. He had to admit that what she said made sense, and so did Gracie’s theory about why the kids were so unkind to the ladies he’d courted. Ellie agreed with her sister’s claim that children needed limitations, and as much as it galled him, and as uncertain as he was that he could set and maintain those restrictions, his gut told him they were right. He wanted to have children people liked, children whose behavior he could be proud of. It was no fun wondering when he would hear about another of their escapades.
He’d also talked with the young women he’d courted, and when pressed, they’d each acknowledged that Cilla and Brady were the real reasons behind their breaking things off.
The onus was definitely on him. It wouldn’t be easy, and it wouldn’t happen overnight, but he was nothing if not determined. Or maybe that was hardheadedness, something he’d passed on to his children.
Colt’s gaze sought the small white house situated at the edge of town. Smoke billowed from the open parlor windows. A giant fist seemed to grab his heart. Fire! Gripped with sudden panic, he broke into a run, sorting impressions as he went. No tongues of flame licked at the curtains, and he didn’t hear the pop and crackle of burning wood. The house didn’t appear to be on fire, so what was going on?
Breathing heavily, he pulled open the screen door, flinging it against the outer wall and rattling the windows in their frames. A thick fog of smoke and the stench of charred bacon assaulted him. Narrowing his burning eyes and waving his hand in front of his face in a futile attempt to dissipate the acrid air, he made his way to the kitchen. A quick look around the room told him he’d been right. There was no fire. Thank heaven.
Cilla stood at the open back door, an old apron of Patrice’s tied around her waist as she fanned the air with it, as if the feeble effort might clear the room faster. Brady stood bent over with his palms on his knees, hacking and coughing. A cast-iron skillet lay in the yard beyond the covered porch, where Cilla must have thrown it, its charred contents scattered about. The neighbor’s mutt approached a piece of the bacon, nudged it with his nose, whimpered and backed away. Colt wondered if it was still hot or if even the dog found it unpalatable.
“What happened?” he asked, nearing the two culprits.
They both looked at him, smoke-induced tears streaming down their cheeks. “I was trying to fix you some supper,” Cilla said, her blue eyes, so much like her mother’s, filled with remorse and trepidation.
Newly aware of how they played on his sympathies, and with the unexpected declaration coming so close on the heels of his talk with Ellie, little warning bells began to sound inside his head. Why was Cilla attempting to cook when she seldom had before? Was this one of those attempts to “butter him up,” as Ellie suggested?
“Why?” he asked, taking them each by the arm and ushering them out into the fresher air of the summer day.
Wide-eyed, Brady looked at Cilla, who was dabbing at her watering eyes with the hem of the apron. Colt waited.
Cilla finally looked at him, a limpid expression in her eyes. “I was going to fix you some bacon and pancakes since it’s your favorite and you hardly ever have them.”
Oh, yes. Definitely buttering him up. Colt hooked his thumbs in the belt loops of his denim pants. “That’s mighty nice of you,” he said, “but why today of all days? Are we celebrating something?” He looked from one child to the other with feigned nonchalance.
“Uh, no, not really. We just thought it would be a nice thing to do, since you work so hard and everything.”
Never one to put off an unpleasant chore—unless it came to his children—Colt decided it was time to get on with it. No more dillydallying. After all, he was turning over a new leaf as a parent. “Then is anything wrong? Did something happen?” he asked with an inquisitive lift of his eyebrows.
Cilla stared into his eyes for long seconds, and turned to her brother with a sigh. “He knows, Brady.”
“Who told you?” Brady demanded, whipping up a healthy indignation.
“Miss Grainger.”
“That mean old tattletale!” Brady cried, his voice strident with outrage. Cilla gave an unladylike snort.
“Let’s go sit under the oak tree,” Colt said, gesturing toward the shaded area. “Maybe the house will air out enough to go back inside in a bit.”
When they were settled beneath the gnarled limbs of the tree, Colt stretched out his long denim-clad legs and crossed them. Where should he start? He decided to approach the situation the way Patrice would have. The trouble was, he had no notion of how she might have handled things.
“It’s way past time the three of us had a talk,” he said, deciding to jump in feet first.
“About what?” Cilla regarded him with wide-eyed innocence.
Colt pinned her with a look that said without words that she knew what was coming. She dropped her gaze and plucked at the apron still tied around her waist.
“We need to talk about you and Brady and the fact that the two
