LITMIR.BIZ

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insisted that he had to have one,” Connie said, sliding a look at Marcus. “He spends too much on us, doesn’t he, munchkin?”

      “Don’t be silly,” Marcus scoffed. “If you’d let me pay you for keeping house—”

      “You do pay me,” Connie interrupted tartly. “You’re putting a roof over our heads.”

      “It’s more than a fair exchange,” Marcus argued.

      “Somehow, I don’t think he minds,” Vince told Connie, smiling at Marcus and clasping Jolie’s hand in his.

      Marcus saluted him with his punch glass.

      “I’m sure he doesn’t,” Connie replied, “but I do. That’s why I’m intending to go to school and learn a trade of some sort.”

      Marcus studiously kept a grimace off his face, even as Jolie sat forward, exclaiming “That’s great!”

      “You have to know that we’ll help in any way that we can,” Vince assured Connie.

      “Thanks, but that’s the point, isn’t it? I have to be able to help myself. Still, since you’re not working at the cleaners now, Jo, maybe you could watch Russell a couple of days a week? They won’t charge me to keep him here at the day care, but I know he’d rather spend some time with you. It would give him a nice change, at least.”

      Jolie literally beamed. “That would be wonderful!”

      Marcus smiled to himself, so very proud of both of his sisters.

      While Connie had been in prison, Jolie had cared for Russell as if he were her own child, and in many ways he was. It was entirely understandable that Jolie hadn’t wanted to give him up, but once Connie had been released, Marcus had known that—for her sake as well as Russell’s—she had to take over guardianship of her son. She hadn’t believed herself worthy of mothering a child, but no one who knew her could say that now. Marcus’s one regret was that Jolie had gotten hurt in the process, and he had feared that the resulting break in the family would be permanent.

      Thank God that had not been the case.

      Vince had helped Jolie find a way to forgive and reconnect with her family. Considering that they’d fought a custody battle over the boy, Connie showed great compassion and wisdom in asking Jolie to help care for Russell. Thankfully, Connie understood that Jolie would always share a special bond with Russell and that he needed Jolie to be his aunt. Now, she could be.

      Marcus only wished that Connie could forgive herself for her past mistakes as readily as she forgave others. He hated to think about Connie not spending her days with her son, but he understood why she felt that she had to go to school. Somehow, though, something told him that it wasn’t the right thing to do, not at this time. Still, he kept his opinion to himself.

      One thing he had learned was that God always had a plan for His children, and Marcus had no doubts, that, when the time was right, God would reveal His plan for Connie.

      Connie tacked her smile into place and took her son to find his sippy cup and something appropriate with which to fill it. She loved her sister, and she had no doubt that it was wise to have Jolie watch Russell whenever she could, but she felt stretched thin at the moment. She had not expected this day to be so hard for her. That it was seemed irrefutable proof that she was not the person she should be.

      Father, forgive me, she prayed silently. I want to be better. I really do. It was a familiar but heartfelt refrain, and she determinedly set out to enjoy her sister’s wedding reception.

      Russell was yawning by the time the bride and groom cut the cake. It finally seemed acceptable for Connie to make her escape. The Cutler sisters, however, would hear nothing of it. The bridal bouquet was yet to be tossed, they declared, and Connie was one of only four unmarried ladies present over the age of twelve. She couldn’t very well refuse to line up with the others. It was her only sister’s wedding, after all.

      She wanted the floor to open up and swallow her whole when she actually caught the thing, though caught was too fine a word for what happened.

      As was usually the case, the florist had made a replica of the bridal bouquet for the traditional toss. That way, the bride could keep her real bouquet and the lucky, next-to-be-married recipient could keep the silk copy. The silk flowers were quite lightweight and sailed merely a few feet over Jolie’s shoulder before bouncing off Connie’s chest.

      The bouquet plopped to the floor, as Connie had made no real attempt to catch it, but Russell, who was at her feet, promptly snatched it up and presented it to her, proud as a peacock. Everyone laughed and Connie felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment because surely too many knew how ridiculous the idea was that she would be the next to marry.

      A great deal of effort went into her smile for the photos, and when she left the room a few minutes later, a sleepy Russell snuggled against her chest, she felt like the worst sort of ingrate. God had blessed her, despite her mistakes, and she told herself firmly that she would not allow envy and regret to rob her of gratitude. Nevertheless, she was glad to finally get away.

      Draping her coat over her shoulders, she pulled the edges together around her son and carried him swiftly across the compound. By the time she reached the neat little house that they shared with her brother, her feet were killing her and her arms felt like lead weights. It was a great pleasure to kick off her satin pumps, deposit the silk bouquet on a handy shelf and gently lower Russell onto the changing table.

      Russell was sleeping already, but he roused as she changed him. Softly singing a lullaby, she kept her movements slow and easy as she removed his wedding finery and slipped him into footed pajamas. She dropped down into the bedside rocker with him. Moments later, he was deeply asleep again without a care in the world, his face sublime.

      Then it came, the sense of awe, the vast relief.

      How could she feel envy when she was here in this warm, cozy house instead of a cold, impersonal cell? She had her son with her—not only an empty ache in her heart—and she had just come from her dear sister’s wedding. Moreover, her kind, generous big brother would be home shortly, still beaming, no doubt.

      “Thank you, God,” she whispered, blinking back tears as she lay her son in his crib.

      Perhaps she would never have what Jolie did, but she had more than she deserved. It was enough.

      Kendal gently closed the door to his daughter’s room and leaned against it, sighing with relief. Bedtime had not been the ordeal that he had feared it would be this evening, which was not to say that the day hadn’t been difficult enough. The session with Dr. Stenhope had not gone well.

      Usually, Larissa tolerated the grandmotherly psychiatrist with cool indifference. Today, however, she had wailed and struggled until Dr. Stenhope had yielded the direction of her exercises to a younger assistant. Kendal didn’t need a psychiatrist to tell him that his child was fixated on younger women, women who apparently reminded her of her mother on some level, women such as Connie Wheeler.

      He turned off thoughts of the petite, compassionate woman, allowing himself instead to indulge a remnant of the rage that he’d felt since the death of his wife. Intellectually, he knew that he was as much to blame for this situation as Laura was and the great guilt that he carried quickly eclipsed the anger. True, she’d shut him out after Larissa was born, but he’d allowed it to happen. It was as if Laura hadn’t known how to be both a wife and a mother at the same time, and he hadn’t known how to overcome his own hurt and disappointment to help her.

      He now realized how selfish and convenient that had been. Oh, he’d told himself that, as Larissa grew older, Laura would relax and allow him to take a hand in raising their daughter, but Larissa had needed him then as much as she did now. He could not escape the fact that he had been as unfair to his daughter as Laura had been to him.

      It had been horribly easy to take a backseat. His mortgage brokerage had burgeoned with the lowering of interest rates and he’d been focused on turning it into a real player in the field. That,

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