A Creed in Stone Creek - Linda Lael Miller [124]
“Yes, he was,” Melissa disagreed, pulling her gaze away from the drawing of the stick-family Matt had mentioned earlier, in town, when the parade was about to end.
Kim smiled and tugged Matt onto her lap. “Why don’t you get your pajamas and your toothbrush and come spend the night in the RV with your grandpa and me?”
The boy’s eyes widened. He looked tired, but the things Steven had said had apparently calmed his fears.
“You’ll be okay, Dad?” he asked.
“I’ll be fine,” Steven promised.
Matt turned to look up at Kim. “Can Zeke come, too?”
Davis answered for her. “Sure, he can,” he said, his gaze moving to Brody, who was leaning against the counter, with his arms folded, watching them all. “There’s plenty of room out there,” he added.
Brody grinned, gave a little salute as an answer.
He was good-looking, Melissa thought, strangely detached.
“Will you still be here in the morning?” Matt asked, coming to stand next to Melissa’s chair and looking up at her with what she read as a combination of concern and hope.
It was a tricky question. Melissa looked to Steven for help, but he said nothing.
Suddenly, Matt dashed over to the refrigerator and fetched the drawing, bringing it proudly back to the table to show Melissa. Tape still clung to its now ragged edges.
Steven cleared his throat. “Maybe you ought to go and get your pajamas and your toothbrush, as your grandmother asked you,” he said to his son.
The glow in Matt’s little face barely flickered. He nodded in response to Steven’s words, but he was focused on Melissa and on the drawing.
“See?” he said. “It’s the one I told you about, at the parade. There’s me, and there’s my dad, and there’s Zeke. And there’s you.”
Melissa’s throat ached. Her crayon image wore her hair up, and she had on what looked like a suit and carried either a very large purse or a briefcase.
“And this?” she said, indicating an equine-shaped creature.
“That’s my horse. I’m getting one any day now. Grandpa Davis says if Dad doesn’t get me a pony, he will.”
“Is that right?” Steven asked his father, in a low drawl.
“Let’s all get us some shut-eye,” Davis said, with bluster, exaggerating the yokel-speak a little. “There’s a rodeo tomorrow, and I don’t know about the rest of you, but I plan to be there in time to get a good seat in the bleachers, and that means I need my sleep.”
Reminded of the rodeo, Matt forgot about the drawing and dashed for his room, returning pronto with the things he would need for the impromptu sleepover.
Melissa felt a little guilty, knowing she was the reason Brody and Matt were sleeping in the RV instead of the house. Given what had happened, Matt might need to be close to his father tonight, if only for the reassurance that Steven was safe.
That he was safe.
Brody and Davis went outside, engaged in some quiet conversation of their own. Steven and Matt had gone back to Matt’s room to get a clean pair of pajamas to replace the ones the little guy had chosen first.
“Steven seemed to think you wouldn’t mind if I borrowed some of your clothing,” Melissa said to Kim, when it was just the two of them, even more embarrassed than before.
Kim patted her hand and smiled. “Don’t you worry,” she said. Her gaze moved to the drawing, still in Melissa’s hands.
Matt’s voice echoed in Melissa’s head. There’s you…there’s you…
“Are you sure you’re all right, Melissa?” Kim asked.
Melissa tried hard to smile. Shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she confessed. “It was so awful, especially when the gun went off a second time and I thought Steven had been—I thought he was dead or badly hurt—”
Kim rested a hand on Melissa’s shoulder; her touch was light, but firm enough to be comforting, too. Out of the blue, Melissa thought of her mother, who had never really been there for any of her four children, and couldn’t be there for her now, and a stab of regret and resentment hit her so hard that she nearly bent double.
“Maybe you should see a doctor,” Kim suggested.
“No,” Melissa said. “I’ll be fine in the morning.”
Just then, Steven returned with Matt, who