Lost and Found Groom by McLinn, Patricia (most difficult books to read .TXT) 📗

Jason stood nearby with tears sparkling on his lashes and his thumb stuck securely in his mouth.

Matthew defined defiance, from the tilt of his chin to his rigid stance to the truck clutched in a fist held behind his back.

“Matthew, give Jason back the truck.”

“No! Mine!”

“It’s not yours. It’s to be shared, and Jason had it.”

“Mine! Mine!”

“Matthew–”

But even as Kendra stepped forward to intervene, Daniel reached around and took the truck from his fist.

“NO!” he shrieked. “Mine!”

At that moment Matthew spotted his mother, and hurtled across the room. Automatically, she bent and opened her arms to him, feeling the wetness of his tears and the shudders of his sobs.

“Mommy” was the only totally coherent word she caught amid his sobs–that was enough. She straightened with her son in her arms, cuddling him close.

“You can’t jerk things out of his hand like that, Daniel.”

Part of her knew her tone had been too harsh, but the part of her holding her sobbing child–no matter what the cause–didn’t care.

Still half crouched, Daniel regarded her with no expression and gave no answer.

“Kendra, I’d like to see you and Daniel in my office in five minutes,” Fran Sinclair ordered briskly. “For now, why don’t you take Matthew outside until he’s calmed down.”

The words were framed as a suggestion; that didn’t fool Kendra.

As she started out with Matthew, she caught a look between Fran and Marti that left her oddly uneasy about this impending meeting in Fran’s office.

Matthew calmed quickly. In fact, he soon requested a return to playing with “Ja’on,” apparently his new best friend, truck or no truck. And that left her with no reason to delay going to Fran’s office.

Daniel was already there, half slouched in a chair.

“Kendra, you know better,” Fran said without preamble. “You can’t undermine the authority of another co-op adult supervising play like that or we’ll have bedlam. It’s especially important for the parents of a child to provide a united front. Otherwise any child–and especially one as bright as Matthew–will start working one against the other. Turning to Mommy when Daddy gives an order and vice versa. That might not be so bad when he’s little and cute, but believe me, you and Daniel don’t want to be the parents of a thirteen-year-old doing that.”

At one level Kendra had known Daniel’s relationship to Matthew would become common knowledge. Someone considerably less astute than Fran Sinclair could spot the connection. Yet to hear it acknowledged so openly and so off-handedly disconcerted her.

Had all of Far Hills recognized the major points of her folly on Santa Estella?

“He’s not used to me giving him orders,” Daniel offered, filling in a growing silence.

“Then he better get used to it. He needs to obey his father as well as his mother.” Fran accompanied those frank words with a stern look aimed at each of them in turn.

“Matthew doesn’t know Daniel,” Kendra said stiffly. “It’s natural he’d be upset, so I–”

“That’s easy enough to fix.”

“–tried to calm–What?”

“I said, it’s easy enough to fix. Let Matthew get to know Daniel better. Give the two of them time alone together. That’ll do it.”

“Alone?” she repeated numbly. How could she protect Matthew from getting too attached to Daniel if she left the two of them alone? How could she make sure Daniel didn’t make promises he wouldn’t keep? How could she make sure Matthew didn’t get his heart broken?

“Sure alone. Matthew will learn he can’t use you as a court of appeals over what Daniel says.”

“That’s not a good idea.”

“It’s a fine idea. Daniel’s real good with the boy–when you’re not around,” Fran added darkly. “And it’s not like Matthew’s not used to being with other people now, so it won’t rattle his cage. How about some time next week.”

“No. Fran, I–”

But the other woman didn’t read her signals to drop this topic. Or, if she read them, she ignored them.

“Then the week after. Hey, I’ve got it. Marti told me you’re having trouble finding a babysitter for the night of the country club honors dinner. The regulars are all taken, Ellyn’s promised Meg a girl’s night-out for her birthday, and Marti and I are going to Billings that weekend. That’s ideal!”

“But–”

“Is that okay with you, Daniel? That’s a week from Saturday.”

From the corner of her eye, Kendra saw Daniel’s nod.

“So, it’s all set. Now, don’t you need to get back to your office, Kendra?”

Kendra opened her mouth to deny anything was set.

Then closed it.

To stop Fran’s runaway train at this point would require going into issues of false identities, masquerades and lies that she had no intention of exposing. Whether she meant to protect Matthew or herself or even Daniel, she couldn’t have said.

And so she found herself driving back to the Banner, with the animal cracker tote deposited where it belonged and the tote with the notes on the seat beside her. Leaving behind her son, his father, and a plan to leave the two of them entirely on their own less than two weeks in the future.

*

The day didn’t improve.

None of the sources she called was available. She felt as if she’d left messages at phones machines from the Montana border to Casper. And none of them seemed in any hurry to call her back.

Then Larry Orrin, editor/publisher/owner of the Far Hills Banner, not only nixed her suggestion that someone else cover the country club reception and dinner a week from Saturday, but gave her a news release to fashion into a passable brief about the event.

Her phone rang as she reached her desk. Instead of it being any of the return calls she’d hoped for, it was Marti.

“Are you okay?”

From the tone of those first words, Kendra knew Marti had reverted to “aunt” mode instead of “equal” mode.

“I’m fine.”

“You seemed upset when you left the co-op.”

She’d thought she’d seen Marti watching from the side door, but she hadn’t made eye contact because she hadn’t wanted to talk then. She didn’t particularly want to talk now, either.

“Just frazzled. It’s a busy day.”

“Kendra, Fran told