LITMIR.BIZ

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her best to make it a home.” She pointed to the row of bright yellow flowers lined up like sturdy soldiers across the front of the trailer, as though protecting everyone who lived inside. “I imagine when she planted those daffodils, she wanted to make sure the place had a happy color visible every spring.”

      “Willow always liked flowers,” he said.

      Savvy thought about the white-and-yellow daisy necklaces she and Willow had made on the school playground during that sixth-grade year, when Savvy had been so sad at being held back and Willow had become the friend she needed. Willow had provided the color Savvy so desperately needed in her dismal world. Then she thought of the other ways Willow had attempted to beautify this place.

      “And those metal sunflowers hanging from the awning, and the flowerpots on both sides of the door. Willow tried her best to make this a nice home for the kids, and this is the only home they’ve known. I couldn’t make them move away from here, not after all they’ve been through.”

      “You really do relate to them,” he said quietly.

      Drawing a deep breath, Savvy felt her pent-up emotions pushing through each word, and she didn’t hold them back. “It’s hard enough losing a mom who never really was a parent. I can’t imagine how hard it is for them losing Willow. She was a good mom. And I don’t want them to feel like they’re being punished because their mama died.”

      “The way you felt.”

      It wasn’t a question, so Savvy didn’t answer. She simply nodded.

      “That’s why you’re so determined to make sure the kids aren’t held back. You don’t want their lives turned upside down any more than necessary after losing their mom. And you know what that’s like.”

      “Yeah,” she said. “I do.”

      “And you want to stay here, in the only home they’ve known, because this is where they knew a sense of family,” he continued.

      Again, Savvy nodded. “When she was pregnant with Rose and Daisy, she told me that her boyfriend—their dad—was going to build her dream house after they married.”

      “What happened?” Brodie asked.

      “They weren’t married when she had the twins, but they had planned a wedding that next summer. Then he died in a car wreck before they married. And Willow was left with the three kids to raise on her own.” Savvy took a breath, let it out. “She never loved anyone else.”

      “What about Dylan’s dad?” Brodie asked.

      “He was never in the picture.” Savvy didn’t want to add that Willow had turned from one guy to another after high school, when she wanted so desperately to be loved. Every time Savvy called her from Florida, she’d be dating someone new and had always been certain she’d met the one. “And I feel bad now that I didn’t realize how alone she was here. I thought I was doing a good thing, having her and the kids come down and visit me every year and spend time on the beach. But I should’ve come back to visit her some, too. Then maybe I could’ve helped.”

      “You’re helping her now,” he said softly. “Taking care of her children and looking out for their best interest, too.”

      Savvy smirked. “Those are the words both of the principals used. Looking out for their best interest. In their opinion, holding the kids back is looking out for their best interest.”

      “If anyone knows that isn’t true, it’s you.”

      “I remember that day like it was yesterday, when I learned about mom.” Savvy thought back to when she came home from school to find her grandmother crying. “But you know what was the strangest part about it all, when I learned that she’d died?”

      “Tell me,” he said, in almost the exact same tone he’d used when they were in school. The one that said he was willing to listen, and that he cared.

      “It was that I looked forward to them bringing her body home. So that I could finally see her.” She swallowed, remembered seeing her mother for the first time and wishing that she would open her eyes so Savvy could see if they looked like hers. “That was the first time, the only time, that I ever saw my mom. And she was in a coffin.”

      Brodie slid across the step, wrapped an arm around her in much the same way he had done when they were teenagers. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

      “She died in April, like Willow, when the school year was nearly over. And so they held me back, because it was in my best interest.” She placed her fingers against her forehead and rubbed them back and forth to relieve the tension that formed whenever she thought about that painful year. “I can’t let Willow’s children go through that.”

      “I know you won’t,” he said. “And I’ll do anything I can to keep that from happening, too.” His fingers caressed the top of her left arm, not in an intimate gesture but as a sign of a comforting friend.

      Savvy did feel comforted, until the brakes from the school bus screeched and she realized the kids would soon amble up the driveway. And it suddenly dawned on her that she had succumbed to the charm of Brodie Evans once more.

      She didn’t need comfort from the guy who’d treated Willow so terribly.

      Clearing her throat, she shifted to remove herself from the warmth of his arm and force his hand away.

      * * *

      Brodie heard the bus brakes at the same time as Savvy, and he knew the exact moment when she realized she was talking to him again, opening up to him. She moved away, and the air between them transitioned from the warmth of old friends to frigid and bitter strangers.

       God, help me build her trust in me again. Help me do the right thing, not only for Savvy, but for Willow and her children.

      The girls emerged through the tree-lined driveway first, and their eyes visibly brightened when they viewed Savvy and Brodie waiting on the steps. Both of them increased their pace, pink-and-purple book bags bouncing against their backs as they hurried across the dirt-laden yard.

      “Aunt Thavvy, Daisy had to move a thtick,” Rose said as she approached the deck.

      Daisy, who’d been jogging to catch up with her sister, slowed to a crawl. “I didn’t mean to.”

      Savvy scooted to the bottom step, held out an arm for Rose to curl inside and then held the other out for Daisy. But the second little girl had stopped walking.

      “Daisy had to move a stick?” Savvy questioned.

      Rose nodded solemnly. “Yes.”

      Savvy looked from the girls to Brodie, and he could see the confusion on her face. She mouthed, Do you know what that means? and he lifted his shoulders and shook his head in a “no clue” gesture.

      One corner of Savvy’s mouth dipped, and then she turned back to the girls. “And why do people have to move sticks?”

      “Becauth they are bad,” Rose said.

      Savvy’s eyebrows lifted at that. “Daisy, were you bad?”

      “I guess so,” the little girl replied.

      Savvy looked to Brodie again, and once more, he gave her nothing. He had no idea what you did with kids either, and certainly couldn’t offer any suggestions. So she returned her attention to Daisy. “How were you bad? What did you do?”

      “I threw dirt in Justin’s face,” she said.

      Brodie watched Savvy inhale, her head tilting as though she were deciding what to ask next. And she asked what he’d have asked.

      “Why did you throw dirt in his face?”

      “Because he said I couldn’t plant a flower with everybody else,” Daisy said.

      Savvy had been leaning toward the girls, but she straightened and glanced

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