Renegade Father

The mysterious door opening completely slipped her mind until hours later, after Leah and C.J. came home, strewing their customary clutter throughout the mudroom and kitchen.

She was picking up backpacks and mittens and school books when she saw what looked like a white square of paper under one of C.J.’s wet boots near the back door. She gave an exasperated sigh. It was probably a permission slip for a school field trip or something equally important.

She lifted the boot away and picked up the soggy paper, then felt her whole body go stiff and cold.

It wasn’t a permission slip at all, but a photograph.

A Polaroid taken through her office window that afternoon, of her sitting behind her desk doing paperwork.

Chapter 4

Something was wrong.

Joe sat at the kitchen table watching Annie bounce from the table to the stove to the refrigerator then back to the table like some out-of-control mechanical toy on an endless track.

Something was definitely wrong.

He’d noticed it all through dinner. She hardly touched her food and her face was so pale her little sprinkling of freckles stood out in stark relief.

Every few minutes she would pause from shifting her food back and forth on her plate and gaze out the window, her eyes wide and frantic as she searched the early-evening darkness, looking for what, he couldn’t even begin to guess.

No one else seemed aware of her unease. Leah and C.J. both sat sullen and silent, ignoring him to the point of rudeness, and the rest of the men were too tired from the long day of cleaning the mess from the storm to pay attention to much of anything but their food.

He noticed, though, just as he noticed everything she did. Something had her more high-strung than a thoroughbred in a barn full of snakes and he couldn’t even begin to guess what it might be.

Wood squeaked on linoleum as Leah suddenly pushed her chair back, jolting him from his thoughts. “May I be excused?”

Annie turned from the window. She blinked a few times, then focused on her daughter. “I…yes. What’s the status of your homework?”

Leah’s mouth tightened. “Almost done.”

“As soon as it’s finished, bring it down so we can go over it together.”

“I said I was almost done. Don’t you believe me?”

Despite whatever was bothering her, Annie’s voice was calm in marked contrast to her daughter’s. “It’s not a matter of me believing you. I would just like to try to help you by checking your answers. We have the same goal here. As soon as you get your grades back up, you can regain your riding privileges. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

Leah’s look fell just shy of a glare. “Whatever,” she said shortly, then hurried from the room.

As soon as she left, C.J. set his fork down on his plate with a loud clatter and looked past Joe toward his mother. “May I be excused, too?”

Annie nodded distractedly and didn’t even chide C.J. when he went into the family room and turned on the television set without clearing away his plate.

The children’s departure seemed to signal the end of the meal. Patch and the rest of the men scraped their plates clean just a few moments later and rose to leave.

Luke Mitchell paused by the table. “Real fine dinner again, Miz Redhawk. Just about the best beef pie I’ve ever had.”

His words didn’t seem to register for a moment, then she shook her head. “Beef pie is Patch’s specialty. It was his night to cook.”

“Oh. Well, it was real good. Good night.”

She was busy looking out the window again and didn’t answer him. Luke finally shoved his hat back on his head and stalked out the door.

The compliment to Annie was the most genial Joe had seen him all day. The kid had had been brooding and sour since breakfast.

If Annie hadn’t told him about Luke applying for the foreman’s the night before, Joe might have been tempted to rip into him for his rotten attitude, but he decided to give him a little leeway just this once.

He figured the kid had some right to his foul mood. When the woman of your heart turned you down for a job, it was bound to stick in your craw. Still, if things didn’t improve in the morning, he might need to sit the kid down for a little serious one-on-one.

He was still reflecting on what a pain in the neck employee relations could be when he realized everybody else had taken off and he and Annie were alone in the kitchen.

She stood suddenly and began silently clearing the table. Her jerky movements reminded him of the way she used to scurry around trying to do her best to make herself invisible around Charlie, so much that an eerie chill skulked down his spine.

He stood it as long as he could then clamped his teeth together and rose to his feet. He cursed the abrupt motion almost as soon as he made it when she jumped like a startled mare.

He’d worked hard after Charlie left not to move too suddenly around her. Not to speak too loudly, not to gesture too much, not to do anything else her subconscious might interpret as a threat. Over the last eighteen months she had lost much of her edginess, but sometimes it reemerged.

Like tonight.

“Sorry,” he muttered, feeling the hot ball of rage explode in his gut like it always did whenever he thought about what his brother had done to her. He drew several sharp breaths until he forced it down. “Didn’t mean to spook you.”

“It’s not you,” she said distractedly.

“What, then?”

“Nothing.”

“Come on, Annie. What’s wrong?”

She fiddled with the stack of plates in her hand. “What makes you think something’s wrong?”

“Well, let’s see. For starters, you’ve been more quiet than a barn mouse, then you jump if anybody so much as looks at you wrong, and to top it all off, you don’t say a single word to Leah when she skips out on her night to do dishes.”

She winced and glanced at the chart hanging on the refrigerator. “It was her night, wasn’t it?”

“I’m guessing that’s why she was in such a rush to get back to her homework.”

She blew out a breath. “I should probably make her come down and take her turn, shouldn’t I?”

With that reluctance in the green of her eyes, it was obvious the idea appealed to her about as much as an IRS audit. He shrugged. “I’m afraid this really isn’t my area of expertise. You’re the mother here.”

She flashed him a quick, unreadable look then focused on the stack of plates in her hands. “Right. I’m really not up to another battle tonight. Sometimes it’s just easier to just do things myself. Does that make me a terrible mother?”

“No. You’re not a terrible mother. Give yourself a break, Annie. You’re a tired mother. Why don’t you let me do these?”

“No, I’m fine. Thanks, anyway.”

She would argue into the night if he let her, so Joe just went to work clearing the rest of the dishes from the table then filling the sink with soapy water. He started washing the dishes and a few moments later she joined him with a towel to dry.