An Accidental Family. Loree Lough

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СКАЧАТЬ jangle of the phone interrupted her peaceful reverie, making her slop tea over the mug’s rim. “Rats!” she complained, standing. Well, at least it hadn’t spilled onto her favorite blanket.

      “Hey, Mom.”

      “Adam? Is everything all right with Julie and Amy?”

      “We’re all fine. Sorry to call so late, but I have a huge favor to ask you.”

      She slumped onto a counter stool and wrapped the telephone cord around her forefinger.

      “For starters, I’ve been laid off. And thanks to Julie’s math errors, our last eight rent checks have bounced.”

      Hopefully, he hadn’t called to borrow money, because, much as she’d like to help them, Nadine barely had enough to meet her own bills this month.

      “If I hadn’t picked up when the landlord called tonight, I probably wouldn’t have found out until I got home from work and saw all our stuff sitting at the curb. We’re being evicted.”

      “Can’t you can bargain with your landlord, explain things and promise to catch up a little extra with your rent every month?”

      “That might have worked…six months ago.”

      Julie had been hiding the bounced checks from him for that long? That didn’t sound like the sweet girl his son had married. Nadine prayed she hadn’t turned secretive because Adam had inherited his father’s vicious temper, making her afraid to confess her mistakes. “Try not to be too hard on her, Adam. A thing like that…it could happen to anyone.”

      “Once or twice, maybe. But for almost a year?” He sighed into the phone. “Come on, Mom. Even you don’t believe that.”

      No, she didn’t. But her boy was already hurting enough. “So here’s what we’ll do,” she said. “First thing in the morning, you kids will pack your car as full as you can, and once you get here, you can borrow my pickup for the rest. We’ll store your furniture in the barn, and you know there’s plenty of room for you here.”

      She could almost see him—one hand over the phone’s mouthpiece as he relayed the information to his young wife. When Julie came on the line, her voice was thick with tears. “You’re a lifesaver, Mom. A marriage saver, too. I—I don’t know how we’ll ever make it up to you.”

      Orphaned at eight, the poor girl had bounced from one foster home to another for years. It had taken a while to smooth the girl’s rough edges, but in the five years the kids had been together, Nadine had come to love her like a daughter, and Julie’s pain was almost as unbearable for her as Adam’s. “You don’t owe me a thing, honey. We’re family, and this is what families do.”

      Her shaky sigh echoed through the phone line. “Still, I feel just awful that my stupidity put us all in this situation. Let me show my appreciation by doing the cooking and cleaning, and the laundry, too.”

      “Goodness, what makes you think you’ll have the time and energy for all that after a full day at the dealership?”

      A long pause, and then, “I—I lost my job.”

      Nadine didn’t know what to say.

      “The manager fired me, for an error…”

      “An error that cost the company nearly $50,000!” Adam hollered from the background.

      Nadine suppressed a gasp. Fifty thousand dollars! What in the world could be distracting Julie so badly! “Have you talked with the owner of the dealership? Maybe he’ll overlook it, just this once?”

      On the heels of a long, shuddering sigh, Julie said, “Wasn’t my first mistake.”

      Nadine heard Adam, grumbling and growling in the background, and then Julie said, “Fine. Whatever. You talk to her, then, Mr. Know-it-all.”

      She’d worked hard to teach him to treat women with gentle respect, but Adam was, after all, his father’s son, too. Maybe, their moving in would give her another chance to reinforce those lessons. But would the situation turn into the blessing in disguise people were forever talking about, or add fuel to the resentment already burning between them? Nadine had a feeling that, either way, she’d spend a lot of time on her knees in the weeks and months ahead.

      Adam said, “She’s got us in such muddle that we can’t even afford to rent a truck, so thanks for the loan of yours. And for putting us up, too. I’ll find a new job and get us out of your hair as fast as I can. Promise.”

      Had she ever heard him this angry? Nadine didn’t think so. But at least he had kept a lid on his temper. So far. Lord, she prayed, help me say things that will defuse the situation. “There’s no hurry at all, son. I’m going to love having you home again!”

      So, she thought after hanging up, these would be her last hours alone in the house. If these walls could talk, she thought, wandering the quiet rooms, what tales they would tell, about accusations and insults and violence.

      Scowling, she shook off the ugly memories, focused instead on what needed to be done by morning. She’d give Adam and Julie the guestroom, and put Amy in her daddy’s old room. And wouldn’t the sewing room, with its nooks and crannies and sunny window seat make a wonderful playroom!

      While dusting and vacuuming and putting clean sheets on the beds, Nadine had to remind herself that what the kids were going through was awful, and it couldn’t have been easy, asking for her help. It would take some effort on all their parts to adjust to the situation, but by the grace of God, they’d manage. Soon, the kids would dig themselves out of their financial hole and find a new place to live.

      “Just not too soon, Lord…”

      Chapter Two

      “Did you run over a nail or something?” Adam asked.

      Squatting, Nadine inspected her right-front tire. “I suppose that’s possible,” she said, feeling for sharp objects. “But nothing seems to be sticking out.”

      As Lamont’s pickup roared up the drive, she understood how those first residents of Texas must have felt when they heard the distant notes of the cavalry’s bugle.

      “G’morning,” he said, climbing from the cab. His smile faded the moment he saw her flat tire. “What happened?”

      “Everything was fine when I got home from grocery shopping last night,” Nadine said, shrugging.

      As Lamont stooped to get a closer look, Adam pointed at the gash in her right-front tire. “Found boot-prints in Mom’s rose garden, too, and they’re way too big to be hers…”

      “I probably ran over something inadvertently. As for those footprints, they’re probably just Big Jim’s,” she said to Adam. “You know how much he likes flowers.”

      “I hate to say it, Mom, but you really oughta fire that guy.”

      “I know he seems a little…off, but Jim wouldn’t hurt a fly.” She laughed a little. “And I mean that quite literally. He’s adopted several, you know.”

      Lamont and Adam exchanged an “Oh, brother” look.

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