LITMIR.BIZ

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parade lady,” Matt told him, using a tone of exaggerated forbearance. “Miss O—Miss O—”

      “O’Ballivan,” Steven said. It wasn’t that she was anything special to him, or anything like that. He’d always had a knack for remembering names, that was all.

      “Is she anybody’s mommy?” Matt wanted to know.

      Steven swallowed. Just when he thought he had a handle on the single-dad thing, the kid would throw him a curve. “I don’t know, Tex,” he answered. “Why do you ask?”

      “I like her,” Matt said. Simple as that. I like her. “I like the way she smiles, and the way she smells.”

      Me, too, Steven thought. “She seems nice enough.”

      But, then, so had his live-in girlfriend/fiancée. With the face and body of an angel, Cindy had been sweetness itself—until Zack died and Steven told her that Matt would be moving in for good so he thought they ought to go ahead and get married. They’d planned to anyhow—someday.

      He’d never forgotten the scornful look she’d given him, or the way her lip had curled, let alone what she’d actually said.

      “The kid is a deal breaker,” she’d told Steven coolly. “It’s him or me.”

      Stunned—it wasn’t as if they’d never talked about the provision in his best friends’ wills, after all—and coldly furious, Steven had made his choice without hesitation.

      “Then I guess it has to be Matt,” he’d replied.

      Cindy had left right away, storming out of the condo, slamming the door behind her, the tires of her expensive car laying rubber as she screeched out of the driveway. She’d removed her stuff in stages, however, and even said she’d thought things over and she regretted flying off the handle the way she had. Was there a chance they could try again?

      Steven wished there had been, but it was too late. Some kind of line had been crossed, and it wasn’t that he wouldn’t go back. It was that he couldn’t.

      “So if she’s not already somebody’s mommy, she might want to be mine,” Matt speculated.

      Steven’s eyes burned. How was he supposed to answer that one?

      “And she’s going to make a parade,” Matt enthused.

      As they reached the ruin of a barn, Steven put the truck in park and shut off the motor. Off to the left, the house loomed like a benevolent ghost hoping for simple grace.

      They had camping gear, and the electricity had been turned on. The plumber Steven had sent ahead said the well pump was working fine, and there was water. Cold water, but, hey, the stuff was wet. They could drink it. Steven could make coffee. And if the stove worked, they could take baths the old-fashioned way, in a metal wash-tub in the kitchen, using water heated in big kettles.

      Shades of the old days.

      “Yeah,” Steven said in belated answer, getting out and rounding the truck to open the door and help Matt out of his safety gear. The pickup was too old to have a backseat, but Steven had a new rig on order, one with an extended cab and all the extras. “Ms. O’Ballivan is going to make a parade.”

      “And you offered to help her,” Matt said. That kind of confidence was hard to shoot down. In fact, it was impossible.

      The reminder made Steven sigh. “Right,” he said. Then he lifted Matt down out of the truck, and they started for the house.

      “This place is awesome,” Matt exclaimed, taking in the sagging screened porch, the peeling paint, the falling gutter spouts and the loose shingles sliding off the edges of the roof. “Maybe it’s even haunted!”

      Steven laughed and put out a hand, gratified when Matt took it. “Maybe,” he said. The boy would be too big for hand-holding pretty soon. “But I doubt it.”

      “Ghosts like old houses,” Matt said, as they mounted the back steps. Steven had paused to test them with his own weight before he allowed the child to follow. “Especially when there’s renovation going on. That stirs them up.”

      “Have you been watching those spooky reality shows on TV again?” Steven asked, pushing open the back door. There was no need for a key; the lock had rusted away years ago.

      “I wouldn’t do that,” Matt said sweetly. “It’s against the rules and everything.”

      Steven chuckled. “Far be it from you to break any rules,” he said, remembering Zack. Matt’s father had lived to break rules. In the end, it seemed to have been that trait that got him killed.

      The kitchen was worse than Steven remembered. Cupboards sagged. The linoleum was scuffed in the best places, where it wasn’t peeling to the layer of black sub-flooring underneath. The faucets and spigot in the sink were bent. The refrigerator door was not only dented but peeling at the corners, and the handle dangled by a single loose screw.

      “Are we going to live here?” Matt asked, sounding a little worried now. So much for his interest in ghost hunting.

      “Not right away,” Steven said, suppressing a sigh. This place wasn’t even fit to camp in, let alone call home. The thought of returning to the Happy Wanderer Motel depressed him thoroughly, but there weren’t a lot of choices in Stone Creek, and the next town, Indian Rock, where there was a fairly good hotel, was forty miles away.

      “Good,” Matt said, sounding—and looking—relieved. “The people at the shelter probably wouldn’t let us adopt a dog if they knew we were going to bring it here to live.”

      Steven laughed. It seemed better than crying. He crouched, so he could look straight into Matt’s face, and took him gently by the shoulders. “We’ll make this work,” he said. “I promise.”

      “I believe you,” Matt said, breaking Steven’s heart, as he often did with a few trusting words. “Can we look at my room before we go back to town?”

      “Sure,” Steven said, standing up straight.

      Matt, always resilient, was already having second thoughts about leaving. “Maybe we ought to stay here,” he said. “It’s better than the motel.”

      Steven grinned. “I won’t argue with you on that one,” he said, “but the Happy Wanderer has hot water, which is a plus.”

      “We could skip taking showers for a couple of days,” Matt suggested. Unless he was going swimming, the kid hated to get wet. “Where’s my room?”

      Steven led the way through the dining room. Although there was a second floor, there was no way anybody would be sleeping up there before the renovations were finished and the fire alarm system had been wired and tested.

      “Here you go,” he said, opening a door and stepping back so Matt could go inside. It was, as Steven remembered from his visit with the Realtor a few months before, a spacious room, with lots of light pouring in through the tall, narrow windows.

      “Where’s your room from here?” Matt wanted to know. He stood in the middle of that dusty chamber, his head tilted back, staring up in wonder like they were visiting a European cathedral instead of an old ranch house in Arizona.

      Steven smiled. Cocked a thumb to his right. “Just next door,” he said.

      “Can I see?” Matt asked.

      Steven ruffled the boy’s hair. “Sure,” he said.

      His room was smaller. There was a slight slant to the floor, and the wallpaper hung down in big, untidy loops.

      Steven thought of his expensive condominium in Denver and wanted to laugh. There, he’d had a fine view of the city, skylights and a retractable TV screen that disappeared into the ceiling at the push of a button.

      What a contrast.

      “It’s not so bad,” Matt decided, taking in the results of years of dedicated

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