LITMIR.BIZ

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behavior, even if she had been dead for twenty years. She should have done something–though he couldn’t say what–before she went and abandoned them all.

      Since Mary Margaret wasn’t around to fix things, though, it was up to King to save Daisy from herself. He prided himself on being clever when clever was called for, and today certainly seemed to be one of those days. He had the headache to prove it.

       1

       D aisy Spencer had always wanted children. She just hadn’t expected to wind up stealing one.

      Okay, that was a slight exaggeration. She hadn’t exactly stolen Tommy Flanagan. The way she saw it, nobody wanted the boy. His father was long gone and his pitiful, frail mother had had the misfortune to die in the recent flu epidemic. The story was the talk of Trinity Harbor and had been for weeks now.

      While they searched for relatives, Social Services had placed Tommy with three different foster families in as many weeks, but Tommy wouldn’t stay put. He was scared and angry and about as receptive to love as that vicious old rooster Daisy’s father insisted on keeping over at Cedar Hill.

      Despite all that, Daisy’s heart just about broke when she thought of all the pain that ten-year-old had gone through. She figured she had more than enough love to spare for the little boy who’d been one of her brightest Sunday school students, a boy who was suddenly all alone in the world, a boy who’d lost his faith in God on the day his mother died.

      Daisy’s own faith had been tested half a dozen years ago when she’d been told she would never have children of her own. The news had almost destroyed her. It had destroyed her relationship with Billy Inscoe, the only man she’d ever loved.

      All Daisy had cared about was having children she could shower with love. Adoption would have suited her just fine.

      But Billy hadn’t been able to see beyond the fact that his fiancée was barren. Billy had wanted sons and daughters of his own. He’d wanted his blood running through their veins, proof of his manhood running through the streets. He’d wanted to start a dynasty as proud as the Spencers’. When Daisy couldn’t give him that, he’d taken back his ring and gone looking for someone who could.

      With the exception of Daisy’s minister, nobody knew the truth about what had happened between her and Billy. Daisy kept quiet because she’d been so humiliated by the discovery that she wasn’t woman enough to give Billy what he thought he needed from a wife. Billy had been discreet for his own reasons.

      Her own father thought the broken engagement was the result of some whim on her part, as if she’d turned her back on marriage because she thought someone better might be waiting around the next corner. He couldn’t conceive of the possibility that his handpicked choice for her had been the one to walk out, and Daisy had let him have his illusions.

      And so, until this morning Daisy had pretty much considered her dream of a family dead and buried, right along with every bit of respect and love she’d ever felt for Billy Inscoe.

      The last few years she’d thrown herself into her job teaching history at the local high school. She was advisor for the yearbook, the drama club and the 4-H. She taught Sunday school classes. She took her friends’ children fishing on the banks of the Potomac River and on outings to Stratford Hall, the birthplace of Robert E. Lee, or Wakefield, the birthplace of George Washington, both of which were nearby. She gardened, nurturing flowers and vegetables the way she’d always wanted to nurture her own babies.

      Heaven help her, she’d even brought home a cat for company, though the independent Molly spent precious little time with her mistress unless she was hungry. And as if to mock Daisy, she’d just had her second litter of kittens.

      In another era, Daisy would have been labeled a boring spinster, even though she’d barely turned thirty. Frankly, there were times when that was exactly what she felt like: a dull, dried-up old lady. The role she’d always envisioned herself playing–wife and mother–seemed totally beyond her grasp. She was on the verge of resigning herself to living on the fringes of other people’s lives, to being Aunt Daisy once her brothers married and had families of their own.

      Today, though, everything had changed. Early this morning she’d gone to the garage and found Tommy, cold and shivering in the spring chill. He’d been wearing a pair of filthy jeans, a sweater that had been claimed from the church thrift shop even though it was two sizes too big and a pair of sneakers that were clearly too small for his growing feet. His blond hair was matted beneath a Baltimore Orioles baseball cap, and his freckles seemed to stand out even more than usual against his pale complexion.

      Despite the sorry state he was in, the boy had been scared and defiant and distrustful. But eventually she’d been able to talk him into coming inside, where she’d fixed him a breakfast of eggs, bacon, hash browns, grits and toast. He’d devoured it all as if he were half-starved, all the while watching her warily. Only in the last few minutes had Tommy slowed down. He was pushing the last of his eggs around on his plate as if fearful of what might happen once he was done.

      Studying him, for the first time in years Daisy felt a stirring of excitement. Her prayers had been answered. She felt alive, as if she finally had a mission. Mothering this boy was something she’d been meant to do. And she intended to cling to that sensation with everything in her. Even Molly seemed to agree. She’d been purring and rubbing against Tommy since he’d arrived.

      “I ain’t going to another foster home,” Tommy declared, allowing his fork to clatter against his plate in emphasis.

      “Okay.”

      He regarded her suspiciously. “You ain’t gonna make me?”

      “No.”

      “How come?”

      “Because I intend to let you stay right here, at least until things settle down.” Even as she said the words, she realized she’d made the decision the minute she’d seen him.

      His gaze narrowed. “Settle down how?”

      Daisy wasn’t sure of that herself. Her heart had opened up the instant she discovered Tommy in her garage, but she was smart enough to know that she couldn’t just decide to keep him. Frances Jackson over at Social Services was looking for relatives, and there were probably a thousand other legalities to consider. All Daisy knew was that if she had anything at all to say about it, this boy had run away for the last time. Maybe for once, being a Spencer would be a blessing. People might like to gossip about the family, but they tended to bow to their wishes.

      “You’ll just have to trust me,” she said eventually.

      He scowled at that. “Don’t know why I should.”

      She hid a grin, wondering what made her think this smart-mouthed kid was a gift from above.

      She gave him a stern look. “Because I have been your Sunday school teacher since you were a toddler, Tommy Flanagan, and I don’t lie.”

      “Never said you did,” he mumbled. “Just don’t know why I should think you’re any different than all those other people who promised I’d get to stay, then kicked me out.”

      “Nobody kicked you out. You keep running away,” she reminded him. “Isn’t that right?”

      He shrugged off the distinction. “I suppose.”

      “Why did you do that?”

      “They just took me in because they had to. I know when I’m not wanted. I just made it easy for ’em.”

      “Okay, then, for however long it takes to find your family–or forever, if it comes to that–you are going to have a home right here with me. And I’m going to see to it that you don’t have any reason to want to run away. Don’t take that to mean I’m going to be a pushover, though.”

      She said it emphatically and without the slightest hesitation. Her gaze locked with his. “Do we have an understanding?”

      “I guess,” he said,

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