Season Of Wonder - RaeAnne Thayne

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did not want to be in this man’s debt but that was exactly where she found herself. He was being extraordinarily kind and she was well aware of just how much she owed him.

      “Thank you, Deputy Morales. I appreciate you bringing her home instead of making this a criminal matter.”

      “After three months of being neighbors, don’t you think you could call me Ruben?”

      She didn’t want anything that would bring them closer together but she didn’t know how to avoid it. “Ruben, then. I appreciate the way you have handled things.”

      “I could have booked her for destruction of property. Technically it is the jurisdiction of the Haven Point PD but I was an officer on scene and could have made that call.”

      “Why didn’t you?” She had to ask.

      “I weighed the options, believe me. But when she seemed more frightened about coming home and facing you than she did at the prospect of going to the police station, I figured this was the better choice.”

      “You must think I’m the meanest mom in the world.”

      “Your daughter should be afraid of the consequences of her actions. She needs to fear disappointing her parents. In my professional life, I see too many cases where kids know their parents will never call them on their bad behavior. Guess what? That only leads to kids who don’t know how to function in society.”

      “I will help her clean up the mess. Please find out the details of what we need to do. We’ll make it right.”

      As if she needed one more thing to worry about in her life right now.

       Oh, Silver. What have you done?

      “I’ll let you know,” Ruben said. He was watching her with a strange expression, one of almost approval. Why? She was the bad mother who hadn’t even known where her child was that night. She had botched the whole thing, start to finish.

      She had no business feeling this warmth seeping through her. She couldn’t let herself be attracted to Ruben Morales. He was a law enforcement officer who would have absolutely no interest in her, once he knew the truth.

      “All right. I’ll be in touch tomorrow.”

      “Thank you.”

      He studied her for a long moment and she had to wonder what he saw. She had been watching a movie earlier with Mia, though that felt like hours ago. Her hair was probably messy where she had been leaning back against the sofa and she wore casual, comfortable clothes with no shape or style whatsoever.

      “Doc? I know you’re angry but try not to be too hard on Silver.”

      “Weren’t you just telling me about the parents who never give their children consequences?”

      “She definitely needs consequences. That’s not what I’m saying. What she did was wrong, no doubt about it. But it might not hurt to remember she’s at a tough age, trying to fit in to a new community, which can’t be easy for anybody.”

      Dani was entirely too familiar with what that was like. “I’ll be sure to keep that in mind,” she said, forcing a polite smile. “Thanks again for your help. Good night, Ruben.”

      He smiled a little at her use of his first name but also didn’t appear to miss the direct hint, especially when she held open the door for him.

      “Good night.”

      He reached down to give Winky another scratch behind her ears, then headed out into the night.

      Dani closed the door and stood for a moment in her living room, feeling the heat of her little dog on her slippers. She wanted to sink down onto the floor of her entryway, gather Winky close and cry until she fell asleep, but that was the sort of thing she might have done as a lonely girl in foster care. She was a mother now, with a mother’s responsibilities.

      Right now, she needed to deal with her daughter.

       4

      She made it as far as Silver’s bedroom, then paused outside, still trying to process what had just happened.

      How could her child have jeopardized everything like this? Didn’t she understand how precarious things were? If Dani didn’t do well in this internship, if they couldn’t carve a place for themselves here in Haven Point, she would have to once more pick up her girls and start all over somewhere else.

      They had a nice home here in a nice community. Where would they go if Haven Point didn’t work out?

      The worry that always seemed to lurk at the edges of her subconscious crept ever closer.

      She took another deep breath, trying to beat it back again. She had to do her best to be calm and collected when she spoke with Silver. Raging at her daughter would accomplish nothing.

      Was this some kind of cry for help, tangible proof of everything Silver hadn’t said? She wasn’t happy here. That truth was becoming unavoidable. She didn’t fit in because of her purple hair and her unique fashion sense and, most probably, because of her defensive attitude. She wanted to go back to Boston where she had friends, or even New York to live with Tommy’s family.

      A parent’s job was to discern between a child’s wants and her needs. In this case, Dani knew in her gut that her family needed a community like Haven Point.

      When she pushed the door open, she found Silver facedown on her bed, the blanket up around her ears. The only light came from Silver’s phone, which she was not supposed to have in her bedroom past 10:00 p.m. anyway.

      She opened her mouth to yell about that but caught herself. She had other things to worry about right now.

      Silver didn’t look up when Dani came inside and moved to the bed. She waited her out, standing for a long moment until her daughter finally rolled over and held out her phone.

      “Here. I know I’m not supposed to have it. I wasn’t texting anyone. I was just looking at pictures of my friends back in Boston.”

      Dani’s heart squeezed with sympathy, but she schooled her features so Silver didn’t see.

      “Thanks,” she said calmly. “I’ll put it on the charger in my room.”

      She said nothing else, just waited for Silver to speak first and explain herself. “Go ahead. Yell at me. I know you want to.”

      She did want to yell—to scream and rant and ask Silver what the hell she was thinking. The pain on her daughter’s face held her back.

      “I’m not going to yell.”

      “You’re not?” Silver’s shock was evident in her wide eyes.

      “What would that do? It would only make both of us feel worse and wouldn’t change what you’ve done.”

      “O-okay.”

      Dani turned on the bedside lamp then sat on the edge of the bed. “A deputy sheriff, though? Seriously? In what alternate reality would you ever think that was okay?”

      Her daughter threw her forearm over her eyes, as protection from the light or to avoid her mother’s gaze, Dani wasn’t sure.

      “I don’t know,” she admitted. “It was a stupid thing to do, okay? I know it was dumb. We... I wasn’t thinking.”

      Dani didn’t miss that telltale pronoun. She wanted to pounce on it and make Silver tell her who else had been involved, but somehow she sensed further interrogation would do nothing to move the conversation forward.

      “Do you hate it here so much that you want to sabotage everything for all of us?”

      A little tear leaked out of Silver’s eye and dripped into the hair she had dyed herself. “I miss my friends,”

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