Daddy Wanted. Renee Andrews

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СКАЧАТЬ got another hour until dark. He’ll come back,” she said. “He’s been doing this since the funeral. I think it’s his way of coping. Maybe he’s praying.”

      Savvy nodded, uncertain about whether it was smart to let an upset teenager roam the woods, but also uncertain about whether she knew what was smart or what wasn’t regarding kids.

      Before Mandy could go get them, Kaden rounded the corner of the trailer with Rose and Daisy at his heels.

      “Who’s that?” he asked, tilting his head toward Brodie.

      “I’m Brodie Evans,” he answered, offering Kaden a smile in spite of the fact that he still looked distraught over Willow. His dimples dipped with the action, and Savvy was reminded of the effect of a Brodie Evans smile.

      She didn’t want to be affected.

      “You play baseball?” Kaden asked, pointing at his Stockville jacket, and then, after reading the embroidered name on the chest, he continued, “You’re a coach? Seriously?”

      “I am,” Brodie said.

      “I play baseball. I’ll play coach pitch this year. Next year, I’ll be in kid pitch league.”

      “That’s great,” Brodie said. “Maybe I can come see you play sometime, and then maybe you can come see my team play sometime at Stockville College.”

      “Cool!” Kaden said, then looked at Mandy. “Mom, I’m getting hungry, and they’re hungry, too.” The twins walked behind him wearing the identifying shirts Savvy had dressed them in this morning. Rose’s pink T-shirt had a bright yellow R in the top left, and Daisy’s yellow T-shirt had a pink D. Savvy needed the helpful identifiers, since she couldn’t tell the two apart.

      “Aunt Thavvy,” Rose said, her missing front two teeth causing a precious lisp that made her seem even younger than six. Or maybe the girls seemed younger—smaller—because they’d lost their mama five days ago.

      Savvy dropped to eye level with the girls. “Hey, Rose,” she said as Rose moved into the crook of her right arm. “Hey there, Daisy,” she said as Daisy found the left side.

      Daisy hugged Savvy like Rose, but then pulled away, her green eyes blinking her eagerness to speak. “Aunt Savvy?” She had yet to lose those two teeth, which was good, since it provided another means for Savvy to tell them apart without asking.

      “Yes, Daisy?”

      “Mommy can’t make us pancakes, or take us to church, or anything, since she’s with Jesus now.” Her small hand gripped the back of Savvy’s shirt as she spoke, holding on as if she was afraid Savvy would slip away, too.

      Savvy’s stomach knotted. How could she give them everything they needed? She’d never been a mommy and didn’t know all that much about it. But the girls were hurting, and Willow had apparently thought Savvy was the best person to take care of her kids in case something happened.

       Willow, are you sure?

      “Can you make pancaketh?” Rose asked.

      “Yes,” she answered. “I can make pancakes.”

      You’re going to do fine, Mandy mouthed, and Savvy prayed that she was right.

      After Mandy and Kaden left, Savvy turned to Brodie. “You should probably go, too.”

      “I want to meet Dylan,” he said. “And I do want to help him, to tutor him the way Willow wanted.”

      Savvy figured as much, and those last four words—the way Willow wanted—were the ones that made her say, “You can meet him and see if he wants you to help him. But if he says no, then that’s it. You’ll go, and we’ll get someone else to help—” She tried to sound authoritative, but her voice broke when a loud boom of thunder belted overhead.

      “We’ll see,” Brodie answered, and then peered up at the charcoal clouds swiftly moving above the trees. “Storm is coming.”

      Rose and Daisy had already darted up the steps toward the trailer. “Hurry!” Daisy called. “We need to go in!”

      “But whereth Dylan?” Rose asked.

      “Go on inside,” Savvy said, shivering as lightning sliced the sky. “Dylan will be here soon.”

      The girls disappeared into the trailer, and Savvy peered toward the woods, then yelped at a loud blast of thunder.

      “Still scared of storms?” Brodie asked, the rumble of his voice resonating close to her left ear.

      She nodded, too spooked to even attempt to lie. “But I’m also worried about Dylan.” She looked at him, then back at the trailer. “I can’t leave the girls, but...”

      “I’ll go find him,” he said, before she’d even bolstered the courage to ask him for help. “You take care of the twins. I’ll bring him back safely.”

      Lightning once again split the sky in two, and this time, it hit something with a deafening crack.

      Savvy’s hand flew to her throat as the rain began to fall.

      “I’m pretty sure that hit a tree,” he said. “Go back inside and get out of the storm. I’ll find him. Don’t worry.”

      But Savvy was worried. Because Dylan was lost, and because Willow had written to a guy she said she’d hate forever, and now Savvy relied on that very same guy...to find Willow’s son.

Chapter Three

      “Dylan! Dylan, can you hear me?” Brodie was glad he’d had the wherewithal to grab his jacket and flashlight out of his truck before heading into the woods. It’d gotten dark much quicker than he had anticipated, and the drizzling rain combined with the unseasonal wind chilled him to the bone. He hoped the boy had already made it home, but in case he hadn’t, Brodie would keep looking.

      When he was a teenager, he’d been familiar with this section of the woods that led to Lookout Mountain; however, he’d always entered from the Claremont side, near Landon Cutter’s place. Coming in from the Stockville end was different. The trails weren’t as wide and hadn’t been cleared out. You could ride horses through the trails on the Cutters’ property, and he’d often done that with his friends back in high school. Sometimes Landon and John Cutter would come along. Sometimes Georgiana Sanders did, as well. But always Savvy and Willow.

      They’d been the three “wild ones” of Claremont High back in the day. Always together, always defending each other to the end.

      Willow, the one whose family expected perfection and who couldn’t find her way out of her big brother’s shadow. It hadn’t surprised Brodie when Savvy said her son’s name was Dylan. Naturally, Willow would continue idolizing her brother through her son. By the time Brodie, the army brat, had moved to Claremont in the ninth grade, he’d lived in more cities than he could count, thanks to his father’s military career. But he’d found his comfort zone—and his baseball talent—in this town. Savvy, the self-professed black sheep of the Bowers family, abandoned by her mother as an infant and then raised by grandparents who loved СКАЧАТЬ