the age where he’d rather stick needles in his eyes than have a relative hug him in front of his friends.
Or not, she thought with a big smile as Tyler hurled himself at her, wrapping matchstick arms around her waist and squeezing with surprising strength. Then, without relinquishing his hold, he leaned back and grinned up at her. “I’m glad you’re here. Mom’s been either in the hospital or that rehabib, rehabibl—that nursing place—forever and she still can’t get around very good. But she says you’re gonna stay with us and take me to my practices and games and stuff ’til she’s better. Dintja, Mom?” He turned his head to get Janna’s endorsement—and did a double take.
His jaw sagging, he dropped his arms from Macy’s waist. “Mom? Is that—? Wow. You look…uh, you look really—” He blinked at her.
“Pretty,” said the little redheaded boy who had followed Tyler into the room.
“Yeah.” Tyler nodded and, once in motion, his head continued to bob like a marionette’s in the hands of a mad puppeteer. “Did you use one of them boxes the ladies buy at Sheppard Drugs to change their hair color?”
“No, it’s a wig of Aunt Macy’s.”
“Can you wear it again at my Little League game?”
“Oh, honey, I don’t know about tha—”
“Is that my baby girl’s car I see parked out back?” a feminine voice bawled from the kitchen. “Macy O’James, you get your tush in here this minute and give your Auntie a hug!”
Laughing, Macy left Tyler and Janna to their discussion, whirled on her bare heel and raced from the room. Long-legged strides carried her down the hallway and into the kitchen, where she embraced the woman who had just dumped an armload of grocery bags onto the counter.
Warm, plump arms wrapped around her in return and when she bent her head to bring them to a more equitable level, Macy was enveloped in Lenore’s signature scent: a combination of comfort food and sugar cookies. This, this, was the reason she braved the condemnation of this town. Because of Aunt Lenore and Uncle Bud and Janna and Ty, this was home. They were her home.
“Let me look at you.” Stepping back, Lenore held Macy at arm’s length. A wry smile tipped up the corner of her lips. “You get separated from the cast of 42nd Street?”
She laughed. “You should have seen the full effect before I took off my wig, shoes and sailor cap.”
“That’s my Macy.” Her aunt reached out an age-spotted hand and brushed Macy’s bangs out of her eyes. “It’s good to have you home, girl.”
“I’m sorry I don’t get back here more often, Auntie Lenore. It’s just—”
“Difficult. I know. I still want to skin that Mayfield boy alive every time I clap eyes on him. If it wasn’t for him and his lies—”
“I brought along some wickedly hot outfits.” Macy grinned, but avoided Lenore’s eagle-eyed gaze so her aunt wouldn’t see the lack of humor in her own. “I plan on giving him and all his sycophants an eat-your-heart-out eyeful while I’m here.”
“I don’t suppose you could just let it go.”
Her stomach clenched at the thought of disappointing her aunt any more than she already had over the years, but she looked Lenore in the eye. “No. I won’t go looking for trouble, but I won’t step away from it, either.” Then honesty compelled her to amend her statement. “Okay, I suppose I do look for it, in a way, with the clothes I choose to wear to town.”
She rubbed her temples, looking at her aunt from beneath the bridge formed by her thumb and fingers. “I know you probably think I lie awake nights plotting ways to make people squirm, but I truly don’t. I rarely even think about this stuff when I’m away from here. But the minute I cross the county line, something happens to me. And I’m sorry, Auntie, I know it would make things so much easier on the family if I could just be less problematic, but—”
“You can stop right there, Macy Joleen—no one here wants or expects you to be anything but exactly what you are. I do believe, however, that you would be a lot happier if you could walk away from it.” Lenore patted Macy’s cheek. “But you’re gonna do what you gotta do until you no longer gotta do it.”
Stepping back, she added briskly, “But not today. Today, you’re all mine. Stick around while I put the groceries away and get the pork chops going. Have you seen your Uncle Bud yet?”
“No. Janna said he went in to pick something up at the Feed and Seed.” She cocked her eyebrows at her aunt. “You two ever considered carpooling?”
“Aren’t you the smart-mouthed little missy!”
“A smart-mouth, maybe, but hardly little. I’m way bigger than you are, Madam Short Stuff.” Stepping close, she wrapped an arm around her aunt to showcase the disparity between her five-eight and Lenore’s five-four, then had to hide a frown when she realized her aunt had lost weight since she’d seen her at the hospital in Spokane just five weeks ago after Janna’s encounter with a hit-and-run driver. The new frailness suggested an even greater discrepancy between their heights now—and she was barefoot while her aunt wore her usual sturdy clogs.
Lenore was almost seventeen years older than Macy’s mother. But she’d had Janna just a month before Macy was born. She and Uncle Bud had always been closer to grandparent age than that of a parent, but Macy had never invested much thought in the difference between them and her classmates’ folks when she was a kid. Her aunt and uncle had provided her a stable place to escape her mother’s perpetual wanderlust and had been, in her estimation, simply the best parents any kid could hope to have.
She rubbed her aunt’s upper arm. “What can I do to help?”
“Just what you came here for, sweetheart. Help Janna all she’ll let you and take the burden of worry off her by looking out for Ty.”
“I meant right now, for you,” she said with a laugh. “But I’m definitely here for Janna. How is she doing, Auntie? She looks so pale.”
“She’s improving. You already know what a rough go she had of it at first, and she certainly didn’t love rehab in that interim nursing home after they sprung her from the hospital. But she’s home now and improving a little every day. The doctor expects her recovery to pick up its pace once she starts physical therapy.”
“Good. I was so excited to see you when you got home that I kind of raced off and left her. Let me just run down the hall to see if she has everything she needs, then I’ll come back and peel potatoes or do whatever other KP you need. You want me to set the table in the dining room first?”
“No, that’s Ty’s job, but I think I just heard him thunder up the stairs. Dinner’s not until six, as usual, but if you wouldn’t mind going up and asking him to come down and do it now I’d appreciate it. And tell Charlie if he’s eating here he can lend a hand, as well.” She shook her head. “Those two,” she said gruffly. “I swear they’re permanently joined at the hip.” But Macy saw the smile that curved her lips as her aunt turned away.
She went up and passed on the message to Ty and his friend, smiling when the boys complained loudly, yet immediately clattered down the stairs to do as they were bid. Sauntering behind them, she paused for a second outside her and Janna’s old room. Then she turned the knob and
