Listen to Your Heart - Fern Michaels [63]
“The family will take care of it. Will you come with us?”
“You mean right now?” There was such hope in her face, Josie felt like crying.
“Right now, right this minute,” Paul said gently. “Josie will help you pack.”
“But my job . . .”
“We’ll call your employer first thing Monday morning.”
“My father . . .”
“We’ll leave him a note and my phone number. He doesn’t deserve even that, but we’ll do it anyway,” Paul said.
“The dog. The dog goes, too.”
“You’re absolutely right. The dog goes, too. I wouldn’t have it any other way. What’s his name?”
“Ollie. Pete named him. We found him alongside the road. I guess someone dumped him out of a car. I know what that’s like.”
“What about the boy’s father?”
“He took off a week after Pete was born. He wasn’t interested in responsibility or paying child support. We’ve done just fine without him. Should I call you Paul or Uncle Paul? What?”
“Paul will do just fine.”
“I’ll clean up the kitchen while you pack. Should I turn off the oven?” Josie asked.
“The cookies are done. Just take them out and leave the tray on top of the stove.”
Paul inched his way over to the middle of the floor and sat down opposite the little boy. The speckled dog eyed him warily until he reached out to scratch him behind the ears. The little boy laughed. “Him likes that.”
“I bet he does. How old are you, Pete?”
“Three. See, three fingers,” he said holding up four fingers. Paul laughed. The little boy giggled.
Paul held out his arms. “C’mere.” The detective was right. He was a sturdy, solid little boy, just the way Paul had been at the same age. He felt good in Paul’s arms. Good and right. Hot tears pricked at his eyelids. “We’re going to get you fixed up and you are going to have the best life there is. That’s a promise.” He held him away for a moment. “How would you like a bright red wagon and a new tri-cycle?”
The little boy’s head bobbed up and down.
“We’ll get Ollie a big ball and some toys and you can play in the same courtyard I did when I was little. Would you like that?”
“Mommie, too?”
“You bet.”
“I’m ready,” Nancy said.
“Do you have everything?” Paul said, appalled at the two suitcases.
“Yes, this is it. I wash a lot.”
“You don’t have to explain to us. Things will be different now. I promise you.”
Nancy’s fingers flew a second time. The little boy scampered out of Paul’s lap. He gathered up the blocks into a box, then shoved it under a table.
“We’re going with these people in the car. Ollie is coming, too. We’re going to a new place to live where there are lots of trees and toys and little children for you to play with. This is your great-uncle Paul. And this lady is Miss Josie. Mind your manners now—you hear me?”
“Yes, Mommie.”
“I’ll come back for the bags. First we want to get settled in the car” Paul said.
Paul walked through the small two-bedroom apartment. He clenched his teeth at the single bed in the small room that also held a cot. Because of the clowns and animals on the spread, it was obvious the boy slept in the bed and Nancy slept on the cot. The bathroom was clean and tidy, the towels threadbare. “Damn!”
Something perverse in him made him march across the hall to the larger bedroom. It was messy and cluttered. Either it was hands-off, or Nancy didn’t give a hoot about her father’s room. He rather thought it was the latter.
The living room was small but clean. Three chairs, a coffee table full of cigarette burns, and a fifteen-inch black-and-white television. Other than the box of blocks under the table there was nothing else to see. At best, the furniture was worn, possibly secondhand. Hadn’t he seen all this when he first walked in? No, he’d only had eyes for the little boy and his niece. What a colorless, flat existence. When his eyes started to burn again, he picked up the bags and closed the door behind him. He was never coming back there, and neither was Nancy, Pete, or Ollie.
Never.
Ever.
Ten
Kitty Dupré stared at her sister across the breakfast table. She knew immediately