Big Sky River. Linda Lael Miller

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      Molly glanced back at him over one shoulder, nodded. “I told them they’d be coming back here in a couple of months,” she replied. “After their uncle Bob has some time to heal.”

      Boone didn’t comment. Despite his trepidation—he definitely considered himself parentally challenged—a part of him, long ignored but intractable, remained stone-certain that Griffin and Fletcher belonged with him, their father, on the little spread beside the river. Home, be it ever so humble.

      This wasn’t the time to discuss that, though. Molly loved her nephews like they were her own, and with so many things to cope with, she didn’t need anything more to worry about.

      And worry she would. With all that roiling in Boone’s mind, he and Molly passed along the wide hallway that opened onto a big dining room with floor-to-ceiling windows on one side overlooking the side yard, where a small stone fountain stood spilling rainbow-colored water and surrounded by thriving rosebushes. The scene resembled a clip from HGTV.

      They’d reached the sunlit kitchen when Molly spoke again, employing her being-brave voice, the one she’d used during the hard days after their parents had died. She’d been just nineteen then, to Boone’s fifteen, but she’d managed to step up and take charge of the household.

      “Griff is excited—already has his bags packed,” she told Boone, as she opened the refrigerator door and reached in for the pitcher of tea. Bright yellow lemon slices floated among the tinkling ice cubes, and there were probably a few sprigs of mint in there, too. Molly believed in small gracious touches like that. “Fletcher, though—” She stopped, shook her head. “He’s less enthusiastic.”

      Boone suppressed a sigh, baseball cap in hand, looking around him. The kitchen was almost as big as his whole double-wide, with granite surfaces everywhere, real wood cabinets with gleaming glass doors, top-of-the-line appliances that, unlike the hodgepodge at his place, actually matched each other. There was even a real brick fireplace, and the table, with its intricately mosaicked top, looked long enough to accommodate a serious crowd.

      Back at the double-wide, more than three people at a meal meant someone had to eat in the yard, or on the back steps, balancing a throwaway plate on their lap.

      Molly smiled somewhat wistfully, as if she’d guessed what he was thinking, and gestured for Boone to sit down. Then she poured two tall glasses of iced tea and joined him, placing the pitcher in the middle of the table. Sure enough, there were little green leaves floating in the brew.

      “Fletcher will adjust,” Molly went on gently. Her perception was nothing new; she’d always been able to read him, even when he put on a poker face. She was the big sister, and she’d been a rock after the motorcycle wreck that killed their mom and dad. Somehow, she’d seen to it that they could stay in the farmhouse they’d grown up in, putting off going to college herself until Boone had finished high school. She’d waitressed at the Butter Biscuit Café and clipped coupons and generally made do, all to prevent the state or the county from stepping in and separating them, shuffling Boone into foster care.

      In the aftermath of the tragedy, the whole community of Parable had helped, the way small towns do, with folks sharing produce from their gardens, eggs from their chicken coops, milk from their cows, clothes from their closets, all without any hint of charity. Boone had done odd jobs after school and on weekends, but the main burden of responsibility had always been Molly’s.

      Oh, there’d been some life insurance money, which she’d hoarded carefully, determined that they would both get an education, and the farm, never a big moneymaker even in the best of times, had at least been paid for. Their mom had been a checker at the supermarket, and their dad had worked at the now-closed sawmill, and somehow, latter-day hippies though they were, they’d whittled down the mortgage over the years.

      The motorcycle had been their only extravagance—they’d both loved the thing.

      When Boone was ready for college, he and Molly had divided the old place down the middle, with the house on Molly’s share, at Boone’s insistence. She’d sold her portion to distant cousins right away and, later on, those cousins had sold the property to Tara Kendall, the lady chicken rancher. Thus freed, Molly had studied business in college and eventually met and married Bob and given birth to three great kids.

      And if all that hadn’t been enough, she’d stepped up when Corrie got sick, too, making regular visits to Parable to help with the kids, just babies then, cook meals, keep the double-wide fit for human habitation, and even drive her sister-in-law back and forth for medical treatments. Boone, young and working long hours as a sheriff’s deputy for next-to-no money, had been among the walking wounded, mostly just putting one foot in front of the other and bargaining with God.

      Take me, not her.

      But God hadn’t listened. It was as if He’d stopped taking Boone’s calls, putting him on hold.

      Now, poignantly mindful of all that had gone before, Boone felt his eyes start to burn. He took a long drink of iced tea, swallowed and said, “Where were we?”

      Molly’s smile was fragile but totally genuine. She looked exhausted. “I was telling you that your younger son isn’t as excited about going home with you as his older brother is.”

      A car pulled up outside, doors slammed. Youthful voices came in through the open windows that made the curtains dance against the sills.

      “Yeah,” Boone said. “I’ll deal with that. You just think about yourself, and Bob, and your own kids.”

      Right on cue, Molly’s trio of offspring, two girls and a boy, rattled into the house. Ted, the oldest, had a driver’s license, and he carried a stack of pizza boxes in his big, basketball-player’s hands, while the girls, Jessica and Catherine, twelve and thirteen respectively, shambled in after him, bickering between themselves.

      Griffin and Fletcher, who had accompanied them, were still outside.

      When Jessica and Cate spotted Boone, their faces lit up and their braces gleamed as they smiled wide. They were pretty, like their mother, while Ted looked like a younger version of Bob, a boy growing into a man.

      “Uncle Boone!” Jessica crowed.

      He stood up, and just in time, too, because his nieces promptly flung themselves into his arms. He kissed them both on top of the head, an arm around each one, and nodded to his more reserved nephew.

      Ted nodded back, and set aside the pizza boxes on one of the granite countertops. “I guess Mom told you about Dad being injured,” he said, with such an effort at manly self-possession that Boone ached for him.

      “She told me,” Boone confirmed.

      His nieces clung to him, and suddenly there were tears in their eyes.

      “It’s awful, what happened to Dad,” said Jessica. “It must hurt like crazy.”

      “He’s being taken care of,” Molly put in quietly.

      Boone again squeezed both girls, released them. After a pause, he asked, “What’s keeping those boys of mine?”

      “They’re admiring your truck,” Ted put in, grinning now.

      Boone didn’t explain that he’d borrowed the rig from his best friend; it just didn’t matter. He wondered, though, if Griff and Fletch were avoiding him, putting off the СКАЧАТЬ