Sugar Springs (2 page)

She didn’t need people who’d already turned their backs on her once. That meant she didn’t need Cody.

And she refused to let him hurt her children.

After a pause, Lee Ann had herself back under control and decided to point out the likely truth, hoping that would get the point across to her mother. She softened her voice. “What if he doesn’t actually want to get to know them, Mom? What then? He could be here purely for the job. And more importantly, what makes you think, given the kind of person he was when he left, that he is anyone we’d ever want around them?”

The knowledge of the kind of person Cody truly was still hurt. She’d once been his biggest supporter, certain that his crappy upbringing afforded him a bit of the chip on his shoulder he’d carried so proudly. She’d also believed she’d been the only one—aside from possibly his foster parents—who’d been able to see his real potential.

The fact that he’d ended up sleeping with her half sister instead of her, then raised complete hell on his way out of town, had actually surprised her more than it had anyone else. When Stephanie had informed Lee Ann and her mother months later that he’d declared he wanted nothing to do with his kids, Lee Ann had finally accepted that she’d been the idiot all along. He
was
the bad seed the majority of the townspeople had declared him to be.

And now he was coming back. No way had he redeemed himself, no matter what he’d done with his life since.

Her mother studied her with a mixture of understanding and regret, then gave an encouraging—though just barely—smile. “If that’s what you want.”

“It is.” Lee Ann gave a decisive nod, glad to know she had her mother’s support but also slightly irked with the tone eking out along with her mother’s words. It was almost as if she were implying that Lee Ann always had to have her way. And that simply wasn’t the case. It was purely the fact that if she didn’t watch out for the girls, no one else would.

Stomping feet on the outside steps snagged Lee Ann’s attention. The girls were home. She narrowed her eyes at her mother. “This conversation is on hold.”

With a loud clatter, Kendra and Candy London tumbled through the door, backpacks, gym bags, and preteen awkwardness windmilling in with them. “Grandma!”

The girls dropped everything to give brief hugs to their grandmother, as if they didn’t see her every day. Not only did Reba live next door, but whenever Lee Ann had photography appointments outside the home studio she’d added on a few years before, the girls stayed with their grandmother. And with Grandma they got away with everything. This accounted for their always being thrilled to see her.

Two sets of identical brown eyes faced Lee Ann, and a tiny shiver lit down her body as she recalled how very much those eyes matched Cody’s. “You got a job tonight?”

Laughing, Lee Ann once again attempted to push Cody from her mind, and returned to the cinnamon rolls she’d been making before she’d gotten sidetracked. “Sorry, squirts,” she said, calling them by the nickname she’d used since they’d been toddlers. “You’re stuck with me tonight.”

Good-natured groans came from both before they turned back to their grandmother. As Lee Ann spread melted butter on the dough, she fought back the clawing fear over what might happen if Cody insisted he wanted to get to know his daughters. Unless he proved himself completely inept, she knew that she couldn’t keep them from him. More aptly, she couldn’t keep
him
from
them
. She’d never be able to live with herself knowing that their father had been within spitting distance and she hadn’t so much as introduced them.

Of course, that was assuming he wanted anything to do with them. He also had to prove that over the last thirteen years he’d learned to think of those other than himself. Because whether he was here in town or not, she would not do anything to put the girls’ hearts at risk. She knew too much about what that kind of pain could do to a person.

She picked up the cinnamon and sugar mixture and sprinkled it over the butter. She couldn’t help but play over the times in the past when the girls had asked about their father. The first had been when they were four. A child at their day care always got picked up by his father, and they’d finally asked about it. Telling them they simply had no father had been good enough at that point.

The subject had come up additional times over the years, mostly out of curiosity. Each occasion she’d given them a bit more of the truth. He’d chosen to move somewhere else. He was working in a different part of the country. He couldn’t do what he wanted and stay in Sugar Springs at the same time.

She had never mentioned that she’d twice looked him up. The first time she’d gotten nowhere. The girls had just turned one and she still couldn’t believe he was the type of person who’d turn his back on his offspring. No matter what he’d done to hurt her, she would have put that aside if he’d changed his mind and wanted to be involved in the kids’ lives. She’d searched for him on the Internet but found nothing.

The last time they’d been three. She’d found a phone number registered to his name in Indiana and had almost called him that night. After a couple glasses of cheap wine long after the kids had gone to bed, she’d come close to convincing herself that Stephanie had lied. Not about him being the father. No, she’d walked in on that particular episode and had seen it with her own two eyes.

But about him not wanting anything to do with the girls.

It certainly wouldn’t have been the first time her half sister had made up a story.

In the end, Lee Ann had put the phone down and had one more glass of wine instead. She’d simply wanted to talk to
him
more than anything else. Life as a single mother wasn’t easy, and she was often lonely. Those times brought back memories of her high school senior year and the boy she’d once planned to spend the rest of her life with.

Instead, she was spending it with his kids.

Kendra cackled out with laughter at something Reba had said, and Lee Ann couldn’t help but say a silent prayer of thanks for her daughters’ health. Stephanie had come home at five months pregnant, sick around the clock and barely able to keep anything down. Lee Ann had left college on the weekends to help take care of her, yet nothing they’d tried had ever allowed Steph to gain more than a minimum of pounds.

Finally, six weeks early, the girls had been born. They’d been taken by Cesarean, and during the procedure the doctor had discovered that Stephanie’s insides were eaten up with cancer. The months-long sickness hadn’t been solely due to the pregnancy, and no one had known until it had been too late.

Somehow, though the kids had been born with low birth weights and had been growing alongside fatal cancer, their health—both then and since—remained relatively unscathed.

“Mom!” Fingers snapped in front of Lee Ann as Candy got her attention. “Geez, Mom. Where’d you zone off to? We asked a question.”

She smiled at the long, tall young ladies standing before her, now trying their best to appear too bored to be in the same room with her. They didn’t have to fake the annoyance, though. They had that one down to a tee. Swirling her fingers into a pyramid of soft flour piled on the countertop, Lee Ann lifted her hand and flicked, sprinkling both girls with powder. “What do you want?”

Fake outrage followed by instant giggles ensued as the girls dragged their own fingers along the flour-covered laminate and returned the onslaught. They may be developing teenage girl attitudes she rarely cared for, but they were still her fun little girls.

After being bombarded, Lee Ann conceded defeat and ducked her head, arms outstretched over the dough. “Stop!” She laughed as powder landed on her head. “I’ve got to finish these and get them in the freezer so there are enough for the fund-raiser.”

With one hand propped on a hip attached to too-long legs, Kendra raised a dark eyebrow and made a face of superiority. She looked very much like her biological mother in that pose. “Then don’t start what you can’t finish.”

Lee Ann didn’t think of her sister often these days, but today seemed to be the day for a walk down memory lane. It had been almost thirteen years since Stephanie’s death. In fact, five weeks from today would make it exactly so. Five days after she’d given birth to the girls. Lee Ann flicked her fingers toward Kendra one last time. “What were ya’ll asking me?”

Candy laid out their plans. “Sadie Evans...You remember, her father owns the
good
restaurant in town. Well, the diner is good, too,” she tacked on in a hurry, and Lee Ann guessed that had more to do with the fact her mother worked there during the weekday breakfast shift than any devoted love for the place. “She wants us to come over and have dinner at her house and then work on our school project.”

“It’s a school night,” Lee Ann interjected.

“I told her that.” Candy rolled her eyes in the exasperating way both she and her sister had picked up over the last six months. “Said you’d say no, too. Especially since we were
out last night at the basketball game. But she has these really
fab
ideas, and they’re going to take forever to get done.” Thin shoulders lifted in a shrug. “We need to get started or we won’t be finished before the Christmas break.”

There were four weeks before the Christmas break, so Lee Ann wasn’t buying that at all.

“Kendra and I already did our homework,” Candy continued. “If we leave now, we’ll be home by nine o’clock.”

When Candy finally took a breath, Lee Ann opened her mouth to get in a question, but Kendra took over.

“Sadie’s mom will pick us up and bring us back.”

Candy shot her sister a frustrated glare before continuing, with a slightly less accommodating tone. She liked to be in charge. “Sadie’s mom said she needs to get us before she starts dinner, though. And since there’s only one more school day this week, can’t you say okay just this once?
Please.
”

Silence fell over the room as both girls stood perfectly straight—wide-eyed and unblinking—waiting for her answer. Lee Ann peered around them to see if her mother was taking this in. They were now going for sweet, but with all the preteen running through them, they had no idea they came up short. Reba hid a grin behind her hand.

Lee Ann began rolling the dough up into a spiral as she pretended to contemplate the situation. What they didn’t know was that she could use the time to herself tonight. The thought of Cody coming back to town had thrown her for a loop, and she needed to figure out how best to handle it. Good idea or not, tonight was the perfect time to have the kids out of the house. Life wouldn’t end if she loosened her rules just this once.

“What about helping me with these cinnamon rolls?” she asked Candy. “I still have to make several more batches
tonight. The sale is to help your team get to basketball camp next summer, after all.”

She held her breath, waiting to hear the counter to her argument. She actually enjoyed their ingenuity at times. She wasn’t disappointed. Kendra stepped up to answer before Candy could. “We thought about that already, too.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Lee Ann noted her mother look discreetly down at her lap.

“We called Grandma after we talked to Sadie’s mom.”

Candy jumped in to finish. “It was our idea, so don’t get mad at Grandma, but we called her to see if she could maybe help you tonight. Since she said yes, we’ll put out her Christmas lights for her this weekend
without complaining
.”

“You—”

“We can do it after the fund-raiser,” Kendra interrupted.

Lee Ann once again cast a glance at her mother, only to witness a guilty gleam shining from her eyes. “You were in on this?”

Wearing an innocent expression, Reba mimicked the girls’ tone. “It’s a really big project, and they
do
need extra time to finish.”

Shaking her head, Lee Ann marveled at her total lack of control with any of them. She motioned to the back door. “Put your stuff away and call Mrs. Evans. She can pick you up as soon as you’ve emptied the dishwasher.”

With a whoop of glee, they grabbed their bags and scrambled from the room.

Lee Ann faced the kitchen table. “Mother...”

Reba pushed her sleeves past her elbows and rose from the chair. “You know I can’t say no to those girls. Besides, it is for a school project.” She slid the rolled-up dough over in front
of her. “Hand me the string and cookie sheet and I’ll cut this batch. You can start on the next.”

At the sound of movement in the rooms overhead, Lee Ann returned to their earlier conversation in a whisper. “How did you find out he was coming back?”

Reba concentrated on her task. “I saw Dr. Wright waddling up the steps to that apartment over her clinic. The building’s at the end of the street, so I can see it from my house, you know. Anyway, it seemed the perfect time for a walk.”

“Hmmm...I’m sure it did.” And she could not see the vet’s office from her house, but old Ms. Grayson, who lived across from the office, would have started calling people the minute anything the slightest out of the ordinary happened.

Ignoring the sarcasm, Reba continued. “Anyway, I went for a stroll and walked that direction—just to make sure Keri was okay, mind you. To see if she needed any help. She is due any day, you know.”

“Of course.”

“And there she was. Hauling cleaning supplies up and down that rickety set of stairs.”

He really was coming. Pressure grew behind her rib cage. “And you’re sure he’s only here for six weeks?”

“By the time I got there, Beatrice”—
Ms. Grayson
—“had already grilled Keri. She filled me in. He’ll be here through the end of the year. Keri wanted to take more time off, but he already had another job lined up starting the first Monday of January. She was lucky to get him last minute after the guy she had coming from Nashville canceled on her last week.” Her mother nodded, proud of her sleuthing skills. “Yep, six weeks. And he should be here any minute now.”

That meant she would actually have to deal with figuring out whether to let him meet the girls or not. Assuming he wasn’t the boy he’d once been.