eyes followed Darryl’s. “Go on, son,” he said quietly. “I imagine she needs some reassurin’ right about now.” He patted Darryl’s back, then set off toward his truck, parked a few feet away. “And give your mother a call later,” he called out as he climbed into the driver’s seat, “let her know you’re okay. You know how she worries.”
“You know something, Mr. Chunks?” Darryl said to the baby as he made his way back to the car. “Being indispensable isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
Faith reached for Nicky, who happily lunged back into his mama’s arms. “You might be able to haul him around for a few minutes,” she said with a grunt, “but you sure as heck aren’t going to be able to get him in the car seat.”
“Hell, I can barely manage it when I’ve got both arms in working order,” Darryl said, surreptitiously working the kinks out of his shoulder while nostalgically gazing at his wife’s bottom as she strapped the kid in. He was crazy about his kids, but their presence definitely wreaked havoc on the concept of spur of the moment.
Faith backed out of the car, her curls all messed up; ribs or no ribs, Darryl automatically lifted a hand to smooth her hair away from her face. But he knew damn well there was nothing he could do, not really, to ease the worry from those wide, blue eyes, the same “forever” blue as the sky. Still, habit prompted, “It’s gonna be okay, baby. You know I’d never let you or the kids down.”
The corners of her mouth curved up, sort of, before she nodded. Then she took the car keys out of his hand. “I’m drivin’.”
“I got us over here—”
“Against my better judgment. Last thing I need is for you to pass out while you’re behind the wheel, get us all killed…” Her mouth clamped shut. “Get in,” she said, yanking open her door. “The kids’ll be wonderin’ what happened to us. And Mama is probably waiting on me to mash the potatoes.”
He grabbed her hand. “Honey, I know things have been tense lately—”
Her eyes shot to his, shiny with unshed tears. “Not today, Darryl. Tomorrow, we can start figurin’ out how to put the pieces back together. But today all I want is to go to my parents’ house and eat turkey and pumpkin pie and act like everything’s normal. Today I’m just gonna be grateful my babies aren’t fatherless. Okay? Can you give me my one day?”
You know, it was kinda hard reassuring a woman who clearly didn’t want to be reassured. Even harder when he had no idea what she did want.
And he never really had, not once in twelve years of marriage.
“Yeah, I can do that,” he said, then tramped around the car to get in the passenger side, every step making his head feel like it was about to explode.
“I don’t suppose there’s much point in asking if you’re comfortable?”
A towel-wrapped ice pack perched on the elevated cast, Darryl grimaced at his father-in-law from the plaid sofa in Faith’s parents’ den. Over in his playpen, a bouncing Nicky gnawed on the thickly padded edge, occasionally squealing at the overfed, overfurred cat cautiously regarding the far too noisy, temporarily caged human from where she lay sprawled across most of the coffee table.
“Actually, between the turkey and these pills I’m taking, I’m not feeling much of anything at the moment.”
With a soft laugh, Chuck Meyerhauser lowered himself into his navy-blue La-Z-Boy, the football game on TV flickering in his glasses. He must’ve gone outside for a minute—a leaf or two clung to his striped sweater, while several strands of graying red hair floated over his freckled, balding head as if they couldn’t decide where to light. “Way my joints’ve been acting up lately, I wouldn’t mind some of those pills myself.”
“Oh, yeah, this is good stuff.”
Chuck smiled, then focused on the game, as usual leaving a whole mess of unspoken thoughts shimmering between them. Faith’s daddy was one of those rare preachers who spent more time living what he believed than yakking a person’s ear off about it. Not once had either he or Didi made an issue of Darryl’s getting their only daughter—their only child, for that matter—pregnant right out of high school. That didn’t mean, however, that the situation hadn’t thrown them for a loop. Probably more, in some ways, than it had Darryl, even though marriage and fatherhood at eighteen hadn’t exactly been something he’d figured on. In any case, he’d been well aware of Faith’s folks’ concern about what might happen down the road, that the marriage might not make it.
A concern that still lingered like an odor you couldn’t completely get rid of, no matter how hard you tried. Which was why, from the moment Faith eagerly accepted Darryl’s weak-kneed proposal, he’d made a silent vow—to himself, to her, to her parents—that he’d never give them the slightest reason to think their daughter had married a loser.
A commercial came on; Chuck punched the mute button. “I suppose the town got off easy, considering,” he said. “Not that that’s any consolation to you, I don’t suppose.”
“Oh, believe me, I’m grateful nobody else got hurt.” Darryl took a swig from his plastic glass of sparkling cider. He hated the stuff, frankly, but mixing beer with painkillers probably wasn’t a real smart idea. “Never did buy into the whole misery-loves-company thing.”
Nicky shrieked at the cat, who took that as her cue to get the hell out of Dodge. Chuck fondly regarded his youngest grandson for a moment, then said, “Faith says the insurance will probably cover most of the rebuilding, but I was wondering…you guys have supplemental insurance? To cover your loss of income while you’re out of commission?”
Darryl nearly laughed out loud. They’d been doing well to make the insurance payments on the property as it was—Oklahoma had one of the highest rates in the nation. Not to mention health insurance premiums, which they could only afford with a huge co-pay. Still, having to say no hurt like all get-out.
“Listen,” Chuck said, the sympathy in his voice nearly making Darryl cringe, “we’ve got a little put by, if you guys need any help….”
“No, we’ll be okay,” Darryl said automatically. “Need to have the pumps inspected, but it doesn’t appear they were damaged, so I’ll still have income from gas sales. And once the cast is off, I’ll be back at work in no time. The wrecker wasn’t touched, did Faith tell you?”
“Yes, she did. But three or four months can seem like forever when there’s not enough money coming in. Believe me, I know. Let us help, son—”
“I’ll admit, this is a setback I hadn’t counted on,” Darryl said through the painkiller fog, “but it won’t keep me down for long. You’ll see.”
The pastor’s gray eyes all but looked straight through him. “There’s not a soul alive who’d think ill of you for accepting a little help to get you through this. And if you really have Faith’s best interests at heart,” he said over Darryl’s next objection, “you won’t let that pride of yours cloud your reason. Do I make myself clear?”
Heat crawling up his neck, Darryl focused on Nicky, who held out his arms, squealed, then promptly toppled onto his diapered butt in the playpen. “If we do have to borrow from you,” he said at last, “I’ll pay you back every penny, I swear.”
“I know you will. But there’s no hurry. Oh, for crying out
