LITMIR.BIZ

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help out, no questions asked. Smart, very smart.”

      He shut his mind on that mocking inner voice and kept walking toward the park. He needed to think….

      Wade wasn’t sure how much time passed before he wandered out of the park and down the street. He scanned the sky, but that didn’t help. Heritage or not, he couldn’t tell time by the sun. His eyes narrowed as he focused on the plume of smoke coming from down the street. From his house! Wade broke into a sprint that carried him through the front door and into the kitchen in less than a minute.

      “Tildy? Something’s burning.” He grabbed a pot mitt and lifted the smoke-belching pan from the stove, searching for a place to set it down.

      Since the counter was covered with dirty dishes and the table still held the remains of breakfast, he carried the pot outside and across the backyard to dump its charred remains into the garbage barrel.

      Clarissa Cartwright stood across the alley, in her own yard, fork poised over a barbeque. She raised one eyebrow quizzically.

      “Problem?” she enquired softly, glancing down at the pot.

      “Not at all,” he lied.

      “Oh, good. Well, if the children want to accept my invitation, I have extra steaks in the fridge and lots of potatoes right here, ready to roast. There’s apple pie for dessert and I made fresh lemonade. They’re more than welcome.”

      Meaning he wasn’t? Wade sighed. No question about it. He’d burned his bridges there. She’d probably cross the street to avoid him from now on. But that was what he’d wanted, wasn’t it?

      She turned the item on her barbeque and Wade felt his mouth water, his tongue prickle, his stomach rumble. A T-bone steak! What he wouldn’t give for a nice juicy steak on the rare side with a fluffy baked potato heaping with sour cream. And a slice of apple pie.

      He closed his eyes and gulped, swallowing the gall that rose in his throat as he humbly ate crow. You didn’t take someone up on an invitation like that after you’d embarrassed them in front of half the town.

      “Th-thanks anyway. But we’ve got our dinner ready.” He wished he could chuck the pot into the garbage can, too. It would take forever to clean.

      “Yes, I can see that.” She gave him one last questioning look, then turned her back and lifted a sizzling steak from the grill, watching as the juices dripped onto the coals. “A little too rare, I think.” She laid it back down.

      Wade swallowed again, scraped what he could out of his pot and returned to his messy, smoke-filled home with legs like cement.

      As he gathered the kids around the table to munch on tasteless, white buttered bread spread with gobs of oily peanut butter, he faced the condemning looks in their eyes.

      “To think we could have been eating real food. Steak,” Jared grumbled, glaring at the sandwich. “And pie. I heard her from my window. Pie!”

      “Know what my Sunday school lesson was about today, Uncle Wade?” Lacey’s pretty face darkened like a thundercloud about to dump its contents all over him.

      “I can’t imagine.” He chewed slowly, almost gagging when he tried to swallow the sticky concoction.

      “Pride,” Lacey informed him sagely. “Silly, stupid pride. It always comes before a fall.”

      “Oh. That’s nice, dear.”

      A resounding silence greeted his words. Then, one by one, the kids left the table, their sandwiches torn apart, but mostly uneaten.

      Wade took a gulp of water, then folded his napkin over the rest of his sandwich. He couldn’t eat another bite either.

      Grimly he wondered how much damage it would do to his image to admit defeat and take them all out to the fast-food place for supper. He’d almost decided to do it when he saw Pierce sneak across the backyard and vault over her fence.

      Not two minutes later the boy was sprawled on the grass, happily munching on something, his freckled face the picture of bliss as he gazed lovingly at Wade’s nemesis.

      As he worked on cleaning up the kitchen, Wade had lots of time to notice that it wasn’t long before Jared, followed by Tildy and Lacey, decided to go for a walk. And when Clarissa and Pierce disappeared from her backyard, he knew exactly where all three had gone.

      “Bribing them,” he muttered, viciously scraping last night’s burnt hamburger out of the frying pan. “That’s all she’s doing.”

      His stomach rumbled agreement, and he threw down the pot scrubber in defeat.

      “Sally’s Café is open this afternoon. I believe I’ll stop by for coffee with the boys.”

      Wade pulled open the door, his toe thudding against the box that sat leaning against the closet door. Why had he hung on to his drafting table anyway? It wasn’t as if he’d ever realize that ambition. It was better to get rid of all the evidence of his aspirations to become an architect. Supporting four kids took every dime he made and more moments than he had in a day. Finding time to study would be impossible.

      Wade picked up the box, opened the closet and stuffed it against the back wall, standing the rolls of vellum filled with his carefully sketched ideas behind the winter coats. He had only himself to blame—his sister, Kendra, would be living somewhere with her children if he hadn’t insisted she give her husband another chance, try to make their marriage work. That’s what had killed her and ended his dream, his insistence on avoiding his duty to her.

      Wouldn’t it have been better to let Kendra move out on Roy, come and live with him, instead of asking her to work things out? He’d laid it on heavy, reminded her how much the boys needed their dad. Not because he thought Roy was any role model, but because Wade didn’t want the responsibility, didn’t want to put his own plans on hold. That had always been his problem—trying to get out of what other people expected of him.

      Well, it was far too late to change it all now. All he could do was fulfill her last wish and care for them the best he knew how.

      Wade sighed, closed the front door and strolled down the street toward the local café. When a light breeze ruffled the apple blossoms overhead and fluttered their petals to the ground, Wade thought he heard sweet, joyful laughter from the librarian’s house across the back alley. He ignored it and kept walking. If he didn’t get something to eat soon, his stomach was going to devour his backbone. Too bad it wouldn’t be steak.

      Three weeks later Clarissa picked up the basket holding a pot pie made from her grandmother’s famous recipe. In the other hand she snuggled a basket of homemade biscuits and the carrier that protected her triple chocolate fudge cake—the one that had won a blue ribbon at the state fair.

      “I don’t care what he says,” she told herself firmly as she forced open the back gate. “I promised those kids a decent meal tonight, and I am going to deliver. He can rant and rave for another two weeks if he wants. It’s no skin off my nose.”

      But she hated the acrimony. She knew how hard it was for him to manage everything. The kids had told her enough for Clarissa to get the picture. Wade Featherhawk had not had an easy life and by the sounds of it, he wasn’t scheduled for a reprieve anytime soon.

      Apparently life on the reservation he’d grown up on, had not been a picnic. According to the kids, there was little work and lots of bad memories. Once he’d packed the kids up and left, he’d had to fight for every opportunity to prove he did quality work. Not that he deserved a second chance, her brain piped up. He’s too cranky. But she wouldn’t dream of slighting someone’s work ethic just because he was in a bad humor.

      Clarissa had heard the talk in town, of course. Awful bigoted talk about his heritage. There had even been rumors. Not that she paid them any heed. She encouraged those who had hired him to speak openly about Wade’s good solid work ethic, and the able way he completed the jobs he contracted to do. She’d asked to keep one of the extremely good sketches he’d drawn for a renovation,

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