Tomorrow's Sun (33 page)

His arm brushed hers as he walked past her.

“Do you know what a quilt is?”

Michael nodded. “Like on my bed?”

“Yes. Look at these pictures. Long ago people made quilts that told secret messages.”

Russell leaned over the book. “Like codes?”

“Yep.” Adam pointed to a picture. A white square in the center, surrounded by a wide red border. Triangles, pointing toward the middle, intersected each corner. “This one’s called the Monkey Wrench. It meant the slaves—do you guys know who slaves were?”

Michael shook his head. Russell nodded. “They were black people that bad white men stole and made them pick cotton all day long in bare feet.”

Eyebrows raised, Adam looked to Emily with an expression that asked for help. Emily smiled and shrugged. “Those people had to work very, very hard and they wanted to be free to choose the kind of jobs they would have and where they would live. So some of them ran away.” She turned to the map of Underground Railroad routes. “This is where Rochester is. Some slaves came from places like Mississippi and Louisiana and Alabama and tried to get up here to Canada where they could be free to live the kind of lives they wanted. But there were no airplanes or cars or buses so sometimes they had to walk for miles and miles. They walked mostly at night because there were men who were looking for them and they didn’t want to get caught.”

Adam patted the porch floor and grinned. “And sometimes good people would hide them in their barns or attics or in secret rooms.”

The pupils of Michael’s dark eyes seemed to widen. “I would let somebody stay in my room if bad guys were after them, and I would give them my Crocs and all my shoes.”

“Me, too.” Russell was not to be outdone. “And Mom would cook for them, and we would buy them clothes and maybe umbrellas and mittens. And guns so they could shoot the bad guys.”

Clearing his throat, Adam drew their attention back to the Monkey Wrench square. “If the slaves saw this picture on a quilt they knew it was time to get their tools together and get ready to leave to go to Canada. They needed hammers and nails to build shelters along the way.”

“And drills and saws,” Michael added.

Russell punched his arm. “They didn’t have ‘lectricity in the old days.”

It took every ounce of Emily’s self-control not to scoop Michael in her arms and banish the embarrassed look on his face. “Actually, they probably did bring the nonelectric kind of saws and drills if they had them.”

“See?” Michael stuck his tongue out.

“Adam, tell us about the other quilt pictures.
Quickly
,” she whispered.

“This is a Wagon Wheel. It told them to pack all the stuff they would need on their trip. They couldn’t bring a lot because most of the time they had to carry it on their backs.”

Deep grooves creased Russell’s forehead. “I would bring my basketball and my pillow and my boots.”

Michael appeared deep in thought. “I would bring a sleeping bag and a flashlight and peanuhbutter cookies.” His eyes widened. “I got an idea. We could really put stuff in our backpacks and pretend we were running away from bad guys and hide and everything.”

“That’d be fun.” Adam held out a fist and tapped knuckles with Michael. “And I know just the place we could hide.” He responded to Emily’s warning look with a deliberately blank look.

“Awesome.” Big brown eyes turned on Emily. “Did you make cookies again?”

Her throat tightened, but only momentarily. She ruffled Michael’s hair. “As soon as Jake’s done making a mess in my house, I’ll bake peanut butter cookies from scratch and you guys can help.”

“Awesome.”

Emily turned away. Her gaze followed the outline of the trapdoor and she smiled at the squabbling coming from the blue spruce. “Yeah. Awesome.”

“The guy you met in the kitchen earlier? That was the old me.”

Jake folded onto the floor of the now empty porch and picked up a glue stick. He didn’t seem capable of eye contact.

“The old you told me about Jesus.”

“Right. The guy in the kitchen was the guy I became after that, that I’m trying not to be anymore.”

In spite of the twisted sentence, she had no problem deciphering. There were strange parallels in their lives.

He picked at a flap of peeling paint. “We haven’t had a chance to talk since the cemetery, and I have no idea how you’re doing about that or where your head’s at about me, us, and besides that I was covered with drywall dust, and then I go and… It’s just that you looked so amazing when you flipped you hair like that. That’s not the only reason, I mean I don’t come on to every beautiful woman, but you and I—” He groaned and ran both hands over his face. “I’m sorry.”

How long could she stay angry at a guy for thinking she was beautiful? “All’s forgiven.”

“Does that mean…?” His eyes sparked.

“No.”

“Fine.” His sigh was probably heard in Burlington. “Does it mean I can take you to dinner?”

“Jake, I—”

“I know. We’ve had this conversation a few times now. Let me take you to Chances. For research.

She sucked in her bottom lip. “That’s a line for the books.”

“Did it work?”

“No. I was there with Dorothy yesterday.”

“Great. How’s this one? I need to take you out for your health. You shouldn’t be breathing all this junk. Actually”—the wink made a reprise—“you should be living with me. It’s not healthy here now that we’re sanding.”

A full-blown laugh shook her. “Your house is no longer a safe place. Besides, there’s no room for me there anymore. I don’t think Lexi’d jump at the chance for a roommate.”

“Duh.” His face sobered. “I feel really dumb that I didn’t think of this before.”

“Think of what?”

“We need to trade places. You take my room and I’ll take yours. It makes perfect sense. I’ll be here to work as late as I want and you’ll be there to breathe clean air and help my mom with the kids.”

His last few words closed her mouth on her protests. “There is some sense in that.”

“I do, occasionally, make a little. So we agree?”

She shrugged. “We agree. If Lexi doesn’t have a cow.”

“Then I’ll be back here at seven to pick you up for dinner and move your things when we’re done. Feel up to walking?”

“That sounds nice.”

“It does, doesn’t it?”

She walked him to the front door, listened to the truck’s engine start, sputter, stop, and rev again. He waved as he pulled away. She turned and leaned against the door frame, surveying what Jake referred to as the wreckage of her main floor. From the front door, she could see straight into the kitchen. The dining room wall was gone and the narrow kitchen door had been widened to an eight-foot opening. The decision to cave on keeping the original woodwork had been a smart one. The house kept its old-fashioned charm but was now entertainment-friendly. “You and I make a pretty good team, Mr. Braden.”

As soon as her lungs were good, she’d be rolling up her sleeves, sanding, staining, and painting. She liked the idea of working next to and learning from Jake. Learning, so at the next house she could tackle more of the work herself. The thought did things to her stomach that she shouldn’t allow an hour before he was picking her up for dinner. She walked out onto the back porch and put away tape and scissors. She leafed through a pile of construction paper quilt squares. Time with the boys had gone fast. Too fast. She’d slid into teacher mode as if she hadn’t missed a beat, as if that chapter of her life weren’t closed forever.

Even if she could handle it emotionally and physically, there wasn’t enough money in it. She needed to make fifty thousand dollars a year for the next four years. After she’d made restitution, she’d have the luxury of choice.

As she closed the craft box, her phone vibrated. She pulled it out of her back pocket and stared at the screen.
Speaking of making money
. “Hi.”

“Hey.” Cara’s first syllable was loud but slightly garbled.

“Not a great connection. Maybe you should call me back when you get to a better—”

“Is this better? I was lying down.”

“A little. You sound funny. Are you sick?”

Cara answered with a deep laugh. “Not the contagious kind. Went to a gallery opening last night. I’m sleeping it off.”

Two years ago that would have produced a laugh and a round of Can You Top This? But not a single morning-after story came to mind.
That was the old me
. She looked at the clock on the microwave and subtracted two hours. “It’s four o’clock. Did you stay home from work?”

“Yeah. Not a problem. That’s what I’m calling about. Work, I mean. Are you ready for this?”

Doubt it
. “What?”

“I found you a job. A crazy-paying job that’s, like, made just for you.”

Emily’s spine straightened. Was this Destiny disguised as a hung-over friend? “I’m listening.”

“The gallery owner—did I mention she owns three others? Freaky successful. She has three kids under five and she’s interviewing nannies. But she doesn’t really want a nanny, she wants like a substitute mom, you know? And she’s paying eleven hundred dollars a week and room and board is included. I told her to stop looking. She’s never home so she wouldn’t be interfering with anything. Her house sounds insane—built into the side of a hill in Sausalito. Can you imagine? You could play with kids all day long. All the good stuff of being a mom, but they wouldn’t be yours. How cool is—”

It wasn’t the first time she’d hung up on Cara.

Upset as she was, she did the math.

Lifting her top layer of hair with a round brush, she spritzed it with hair spray and calculated the numbers one more time. Eleven hundred dollars a week times four was forty-four hundred a month.

With money like that she could even provide an expense card.

And all she’d have to do for it was play a role she’d never fill in real life.

If she’d wanted to take care of little kids she would have stayed right where she was.

But if she took the job she wouldn’t have to gamble on the housing market, on making enough money on this house and the next.