Remember to Forget (42 page)

Oh, what he wouldn’t give to call Kaye’s mother and bow out of Thanksgiving for all of them. Just sit here by the fire with a good book, watch the game later without Kaye’s brothers giving their obnoxious play-by-play. But that would never fly. Kaye’s mom had no doubt been cooking for days. Besides, if he stayed home, Thanksgiving dinner was likely to be a sleeve of stale saltines and a can of Campbell’s tomato soup that he heated up himself.

With visions of the usual dinner-table mayhem, Harley in her high chair flinging soup all over the kitchen—and Kaye too sick to supervise—he reconsidered. “I’ll bring a couple of plates home for you two.”

“Uh-huh . . . that’s what I thought.” Kaye laughed and he knew she’d read his mind.

He reached down to brush a wisp of hair off Rachel’s forehead. “Man . . . She feels hot.”

His wife gave a knowing nod. “I don’t think this little angel is going to be eating anything anytime soon.”

Kaye had been up all night with Rachel while Doug managed to play possum through the sounds of his daughter’s retching. A twinge of guilt nipped at his conscience now.

Kaye tugged on his sleeve. “Make sure Harley wears a hat if the kids take her outside.”

“I will.” He grabbed his jacket off the back of a kitchen chair and started for the garage.

“Hey, you . . .”

He turned back at the sound of Kaye’s voice.

She winked. “I like lots of whipped cream on my pumpkin pie.”

The door to the garage opened again and Sadie, Sarah’s twin, popped her head in. “Da-aad, hurry up. Harley’s fussin’ . . .”

He gave Kaye a hopeful grin. “You
sure
you don’t want me to stay?”

Kaye pulled Rachel closer and cocked an eyebrow at him. “And clean up vomit?”

He stuffed his arm through the sleeve of his coat. “I’m going, I’m going.” Talk about the lesser of evils . . .

His wife’s soft laughter followed him out the door.

Chapter One

December 2

T
he parade of taillights smoldered crimson through the patchy fog hovering over Old Highway 40. Mickey Valdez tapped the brakes with the toe of her black dress pumps, trying to stay a respectable distance from the car in front of her.

They’d left the church almost twenty minutes ago and the procession was still barely two miles outside Clayburn’s city limits. The line of cars snaked up the hill—if you could call the road’s rolling incline that—and ahead of her, the red glow of brake lights dotted the highway flickering off and on like so many fireflies. Cresting the rise, Mickey could barely make out the rows of pewtercolored
gravestones poking through the mist beyond the wrought iron gates of the Coyote County Cemetery.

She smoothed the skirt of her black crepe dress and tried to focus her thoughts on maneuvering the car. But when the first hearse turned onto the cemetery’s gravel drive in front of her, she lost it. Her sobs came like dry heaves, producing no tears, and for once she was glad to be in the car alone.

The line of cars came almost to a standstill as the second hearse crept through the gates.

The twin black Lincolns pulled to the side of the gravel lane, parking one behind the other near the plots where two fresh graves scarred the prairie. The drivers emerged from the hearses, walked in unison to the rear of their cars, and opened the curtained back doors. Mickey looked away. She couldn’t look at those two caskets again.

When it came her turn to drive over the culvert under the high arch of the iron gates, she wanted desperately to keep on driving. To head west and never turn back. But Pete Truesdell stood in her way, directing traffic into the fenced-in graveyard. Mickey almost didn’t recognized Pete. He sported a rumpled navy double-breasted suit instead of his usual coveralls. How he could see through the tears gushing down his cheeks, Mickey didn’t know.

Her heart broke for the old man. He must be related to the family somehow. Seemed like everybody in Clayburn was related to at least one other family in town. Everybody but the Valdezes.

Pete waved her through, halting the car behind her with his other hand.

Maybe if she just sat in the car until the procession left the cemetery . . . She didn’t want to walk across the uneven sod. Didn’t want to risk the kids seeing her, risk breaking down in front of them. What would she say? What could anybody say to make what happened be all right?

She wondered if Doug DeVore found any comfort in the knowledge that his wife and daughter had left this earth together.

But on Thanksgiving Day? What was God
thinking
?

She’d never gotten to know Kaye DeVore. Not really. She always seemed so happy-go-lucky. She and Mickey exchanged pleasantries whenever Kaye dropped the kids off at the day care, but it was usually Doug who delivered the children each morning and came for them at night. The DeVore kids were always the last to get picked up. But Mickey had never minded staying late, waiting for Doug or Kaye to come. She loved those kids.

Especially Rachel. Sweet, angel-faced Rachel, whose eyes always seemed to hold a wisdom beyond her years. Now Mickey made herself look at the tiny white coffin the pallbearers lifted from the second hearse. But she couldn’t make it seem real that the sunny six-year-old was gone.

How Doug could hold up under this tragedy was more than Mickey could imagine. She dreaded facing him whenever he brought the other kids back to the day care center.

Maybe he wouldn’t. She’d heard that Kaye’s mother was planning to move in and help Doug, at least for a while. Thank goodness for that. Six kids—She corrected herself. Only five now. But five kids had to be a handful for anyone. The DeVores had gone on vacation in the middle of April last year, and the day care center had been deathly quiet without Rachel and her lively twin sisters and little Harley. It would be deathly quiet now.

Deathly
. Even though she was alone in the car, Mickey cringed at her choice of words.

She jolted at the sound of someone tapping on the hood of her car, and looked up to see Pete motioning her through the gates. She put the car in gear and inched over the bumpy culvert. There was no turning back now.

D
EBORAH RANEY dreamed of writing a book since the summer she read all of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books and discovered that a little Kansas farm girl could, indeed, grow up to be a writer. After a happy twenty-year detour as a stay-at-home wife and mom, Deb began her writing career. Her first novel,
A Vow to Cherish,
was awarded a Silver Angel for Excellence in Media and inspired the acclaimed World Wide Pictures film of the same title. Since then, her books have won the RITA Award, the HOLT Medallion, the National Readers’ Choice Award, as well as being a finalist for the Christy Award. Deb enjoys speaking and teaching at writers’ conferences across the country. She and her husband, artist Ken Raney, make their home in their native Kansas and love the small-town life that is the setting for many of Deb’s novels. The Raneys enjoy gardening, teaching young married couples in their church, watching their teenage daughter’s ball games, and traveling to visit three grown children and a precious little grandson who lives much too far away.

Deborah loves hearing from her readers. To e-mail her or to learn more about her books, please visit
deborahraney.com
or write to Deborah in care of Howard Books, 3117 North 7
^th
Street, West Monroe, Louisiana 71291.

Cover Images by: LaCoppola-Meier, Photonica, GettyImages; and Chrys Howard Cover Design: Terry Dugan Design

We hope you enjoyed reading this Howard eBook.

Join our mailing list and get updates on new releases, deals, bonus content and other great books from Howard and Simon & Schuster.

C
LICK
H
ERE
T
O
S
IGN
U
P

or visit us online to sign up at
eBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com

Our purpose at Howard Books is to:

• Increase faith
in the hearts of growing Christians

• Inspire holiness
in the lives of believers

• Instill hope
in the hearts of struggling people everywhere

Because He’s coming again!

Published by Howard Books, a division of Simon & Schuster

1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

www.howardpublishing.com

www.SimonandSchuster.com

Remember to Forget
© 2007 by Deborah Raney

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Howard Subsidiary Rights Department, Simon & Schuster, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

In association with the Steve Laube Agency

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Raney, Deborah.

Remember to forget / Deborah Raney.

p. cm.

ISBN 10: 1-58229-643-X; ISBN 13: 978-1-58229-643-2
ISBN-13: 978-1-476-73783-6 (eBook)

I. Title.

PS3568.A562R46 2007

813’.54—dc22

2006052569