LITMIR.BIZ

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car was unreliable in wet weather. Houston was notorious for flooding, and the rain was coming down steadily now.

      She asked at the desk for Emmett’s room number, quickly explaining the circumstances to a sympathetic desk clerk after giving Emmett’s condition and the hospital’s number, so that management could check her story if they felt the need to. In fact, they did, and she didn’t blame them. These days, one simply couldn’t turn over three children to a total stranger who might or might not intend them harm.

      When she got to the hotel room, there were muffled sounds from within. Melody, who knew the kids all too well, knocked briefly but firmly on the door.

      There was a sudden silence, followed by a scuffle and a wail. The door flew open and a matronly lady with frazzled hair almost fell on Melody with relief.

      “Are you their mother?” the elderly woman asked. “I’m Mrs. Johnson. Here they are, safe and sound, my fee will be added to the hotel bill. You are their mother?”

      “Well, no,” she began.

      “Oh, my God!”

      “I’m to take charge of them,” Melody added, because it looked as if the woman might be preparing to have a heart attack on the spot.

      A wavery smile replaced the horror on the woman’s lined face. “Then I’ll just be off. Good night!”

      “Chicken,” Amy muttered, peering around Melody to watch the woman’s incredibly fast retreat.

      “What have you three been up to?” Melody asked, glaring at them.

      “Nothing at all, Melody, dear,” Amy said sweetly, and grinned.

      “She just wasn’t used to kids, I guess,” Polk added. He grinned, too.

      Behind them there were the remains of two foam-filled pillows and what appeared to be the ropes that closed the heavy curtains.

      “We had a pillow fight,” Amy explained.

      “And then we went skiing in the bathroom,” Polk said.

      Melody could barely see the bathroom. The door was ajar and the floor seemed to be soaked. She was beginning to understand her predecessor’s agile retreat. Days and days…of this. She wouldn’t have an apartment left! And all because she felt sorry for a man who had to be her worst enemy.

      “Why are you here?” Guy asked belligerently. “Where’s Dad?”

      That brought her back to her original purpose for being there. Emmett’s accident.

      She sat down on the sofa, tossing her purse beside her, while she struggled to find the right words to tell them.

      “Something’s happened,” Guy said when he saw her face. He stiffened. “What?”

      Even at such a young age, he was already showing signs of great inner strength, of ability to cope with whatever life threw at him. Amy and Polk looked suddenly vulnerable, but not Guy.

      “Your father has a brain concussion,” Melody told them. “He’s conscious now, but in a lot of pain. He’ll have to stay in the hospital for a day or so. Meanwhile, he wants you to come home with me.”

      “He hates you,” Guy said coldly. “Why would he want us to stay with you?”

      “Because I’m all you’ve got,” Melody replied. “Unless you’d rather I called the juvenile authorities…?”

      Guy’s massive self-confidence failed. He shrugged and turned away.

      Amy climbed onto Melody’s lap and clung. “Our daddy will be all right, won’t he?” she asked tearfully.

      “Of course he will,” Melody assured her, gathering her close. “He’s very tough. It will take more than a concussion to keep him down.”

      “Yes, it will,” Polk said. He turned away because his lower lip was trembling.

      “Let’s get your things together and go,” Melody said. “Have you had something to eat?”

      “We had pizza and chocolate sundaes.”

      Melody could imagine that the elderly lady in charge of them had agreed with any menu that would keep them quiet. But she’d have to get some decent food into them. That would give her something to work toward. Meanwhile, she found herself actually worrying about Emmett. The first thing she was going to do when they got to the apartment was phone the hospital and get an update. Surely Emmett was indestructible, wasn’t he?

      She looked at the children and felt a surge of pity for them. She knew how it felt to be alone. When their parents had died, Randy had worked at two jobs to support them, while Melody was still in school. She’d carried her share of the load, but it had been lonely for both of them. She hoped these children wouldn’t have the same ordeal to face that she and Randy had.

      Chapter 2

      The nurse on duty in Emmett’s ward told Melody that Emmett would have to be confined for at least two days. He was barely conscious, but they were cautiously optimistic about his condition.

      Melody was assured that she and the children would be allowed to see him the next day, during visiting hours. In the meantime, she scoured her apartment to find enough blankets and pillows for three sleepy children. She put two of them in her bed, and one of them on a cot that had belonged to Randy when he was a boy. She slept on her own pullout sofa bed, and was delighted to find that it wasn’t terribly uncomfortable.

      It was fortunate that she had the weekend to look after the children. Having to juggle them, along with her job, would have been a real headache. She’d have coped. But how?

      They had a change of clothing. Getting them to change, though, was the trick.

      “This isn’t dirty—” Guy indicated a shirt limp and dingy and smelly from long wear “—and I won’t change it.”

      “I’m all right, too,” Polk said, grinning at her.

      “We’re fine, Melody,” Amy agreed. She patted the woman’s hand in a most patronizing way. “Now, you just get dressed yourself and don’t worry about us, all right?”

      Melody counted to ten. “We’re going to see your father,” she said calmly. “Don’t you want him to think you look nice?”

      “Oh, Emmett never notices unless we go naked, Melody,” Amy assured her.

      “And sometimes not even then,” Polk said with a chuckle. “Dad’s very absentminded when he’s rodeoing.”

      “He sure doesn’t seem to notice what the three of you get up to,” she said quietly.

      “We like our dad just the way he is,” Guy said belligerently. “Nobody bad-mouths our dad.”

      “I wasn’t bad-mouthing him,” Melody said through her teeth. “Can we just go to the hospital now?”

      “Sure,” Guy said, folding his thin arms over his chest. “But I’m not changing clothes.”

      She threw up her hands. “Oh, all right,” she muttered. “Have it your way. But if your clothes set off the sprinkler system, I’m climbing into a broom closet so nobody will know who brought you.”

      At the hospital, Melody herded them off the elevator and down the hall to the nurses’ station.

      “Look at all the gadgets.” Polk whistled, peering over the counter at the computers. “Wouldn’t I love to play with that!”

      “Bite your tongue,” Melody said under her breath. She smiled at an approaching nurse. “I’m Melody Cartman. You have an Emmett Deverell on this floor with a concussion…?”

      A loud roar, followed by, “You’re not putting that damned thing under me!” caught their attention.

      “Indeed we do,”

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