A Forever Thing (25 page)

Tina hugged Sophie next. “Fanny gives hugs, and so does
Tina.”

Kate stood up and blew kisses before she closed the door. “You’d
better watch what you do. I think you’ve got a follower here.”

Fancy had barely finished cleaning the kitchen-washing mugs,
putting the rest of the cookies back into the torn bag, wiping the
table-when Theron poked his head in the front door without
knocking.

“You want to go home?” he asked Tina.

“No, I do not!” she said in the same tone Fancy had used.

Theron stepped inside. “What did you say?”

“She’s just repeating something I said earlier,” Fancy said from
the kitchen door.

“Well, let’s clean up your mess and get on home. I’ve got chores
to do,” he said.

Fancy dropped down onto her knees. “Here, sweetheart, I’ll
help you collect the pots and pans. Remember, I’ll see you in the
morning, now. Daddy will bring you to me, and you get to spend the whole day and meet my beauty-shop ladies. They’re going to
love you.”

Tina picked up her doll and bear and headed to the nearest corner. She dropped both toys, put her hands over her ears, and leaned
her face into the wall.

“Tina, we have to go,” Theron said.

Her shoulders shook as she began to sob.

“What do I do?” he whispered.

Fancy went to the corner and sat down beside Tina. She put her
arms around the child and hugged her close. “You get to come
back tomorrow.”

Tina shook her head.

“What do you want me to do?” Fancy asked.

“Go home with me and Daddy.”

Fancy looked at Theron.

“Tina, Fanny has a house here that she has to take care of, and
we have the ranch. She can’t live with us,” Theron said softly.

“Why not?” Tears rolled down her tiny cheeks and dropped onto
her new dress.

“You got a problem with my coming over?” Fancy asked. Theron
had bags under his eyes, and his shoulders drooped. If he didn’t get
a full night’s sleep before school on Monday after the past traumatic week, he’d collapse.

Theron shook his head.

“I’ll pack a bag. We’ll come in tomorrow morning in time for
the ladies’ beauty-shop appointments. She can sleep as long as
she wants that way,” Fancy said.

“I can’t ask you to do this,” Theron said.

“No, but you can prevent me from doing it. Are you going to do
that?”

He shook his head. `After four hours of sleep last night and
school tomorrow, I would be beholden to you. Maybe after a week
she’ll be adjusted, and I can get her into a good day-care situation.”

“Tina, I want you to go home with Daddy now. I’m going to get
my pajamas and toothbrush and drive out to the ranch right behind
you,” Fancy said.

She pulled her thumb from her mouth with a loud pop. “Promise?”

“I promise. You won’t even have time to miss me. Daddy can go
do his chores with the cows, and we’ll start supper. You can help
me.”

Tina bent down to get her doll and bear and went straight to
Theron. She slipped her hand into his and looked up at him. “Let’s
go, Daddy.”

“It’s going to be a long twenty years,” he muttered.

“Want to change your mind?” Fancy asked.

“No. Thank you for this,” he said as they went out the door.
Fancy packed a bag with two pairs of jeans, a couple of T-shirts,
pajamas, and her toiletries. She picked up her purse and locked the
front door, leaving Tina’s mess in the living room.

It’s only for a week. It’s for Tina. But it’s also for me. If a body
eats nothing but chocolate every day for a month, they’ll hate
chocolate. The more time I spend with Theron Warren, the more
I’m going to know that my feelings are nothing more than the result of the moment.

She kept telling herself that the whole way out to the ranch, but
somehow she couldn’t really convince herself, and it all went out
the window when she saw Tina’s nose pressed to the storm door
and Theron’s face above that. She parked the car, got out, opened
the back door, and pulled out her duffel bag.

It feels good to be needed and wanted, she thought.

Tina fairly danced into the living room. “You’re here! You did
it. Let’s cook.”

Theron shook his head. “She’s been in front of the door ever
since we got here.”

“Go on and get your chores done. Need help with that before we
start supper?” Fancy asked.

“I can do them. It’ll take the better part of an hour. If you’re
hungry, go ahead without me” He headed through the kitchen and
out the back door.

The rumble of an old work truck with a bad muffler drifted
through the house.

“Okay, Tina, let’s me and you have a little talk. I’m going to stay
with you, but I’m going to have my own room,” Fancy said.

Tina nodded. “Okay. Can we cook now?”

Fancy hugged her tightly. “Let’s go see what we can find”

Pickings were slim in the refrigerator. A can of biscuits. A
frozen pizza. A six-pack of Coke and one of Dr. Pepper. Two
withered carrots and a stalk of celery that a bunny rabbit would
run from.

She checked the freezer in the utility room. It was loaded.
White butcher paper wrapped up hamburger, steaks, roasts, ribs,
bacon, and sausage. Potatoes and onions were in a wooden box
beside the freezer. She removed a package of steak and a roast, a
package of frozen corn and one of carrots.

“Thank goodness for the defrost button on the microwave. Can
you bring me some potatoes, Tina?”

“Yes, I can,” she said.

Fancy smiled.

In minutes she had steaks thawed and marinating in a sauce
she’d made from what she could find. Worcestershire sauce, half a
handful of brown sugar, a little juice she poured from a can of
pineapple slices she found in the pantry, a pinch of garlic powder,
and salt and pepper.

Tina carried two potatoes at a time. When she had six, Fancy
told her that would be enough and pulled a chair up to the cabinet
beside the sink. She peeled the skins while Tina looked out the
window, keeping up a steady chatter about the birds in the trees
and the cats in the yard.

At the mention of cats Fancy peeked out. Sure enough, they
were lying on the swing, lounging at the base of a huge pecan tree,
and meandering across the yard toward the garage.

“Did you name the cats?” Fancy asked.

“Yes. ‘Vester is over there on Daddy’s truck. And that one is
Sunshine,” she said, pointing out an orange cat.

“You don’t have a Tweety to go with Wester?” Fancy asked
when she finally understood that Vester was a shortened form of
Sylvester, the black and white cat on cartoons.

“No Tweety. Wester would chase him and try to eat him. The
yellow one is Sunshine, like Care Bears. The gray one is Grumpy,
like Care Bears.”

“So you’ve named four of them,” Fancy said.

Tina held up her fist.

“‘Vester.” She popped up her forefinger.

“Sunshine.” Another finger.

“Grumpy.” Another one.

“One. Two. Three.”

“Okay, three of them. That’s pretty good. You can count?”

“One. Two. Three. Four. Five.” Tina showed her one finger for
each number.

“How about ABC’s?”

Tina took off on the song, only missing T and running L, M, N,
and 0 all together to sound like el minnow, but it impressed Fancy,
and she made a mental note to have Tina sing and count for Theron.
With her intelligence, Tina could be taught to read long before she
started school.

Theron looked even worse when he trudged in the back door.
He removed his heavy buff-colored coat, kicked a pair of rubber
boots off his feet, and stuck his nose in the air. The aroma evidently sparked up his spirit, and he smiled.

“Is that fried onions?”

“Taters,” Tina said from her perch on the chair.

Theron raised an eyebrow. “You fried potatoes?”

“You don’t like them?” Fancy answered his question with one
of her own.

“Love ‘em. I don’t care if that’s all there is for supper. I’m starving,” he said.

“Not all. Catch me,” Tina said, and she bailed off the chair into
his arms.

It took a major portion of his strength to keep standing under
the unexpected force, but he managed, and he grinned at his
daughter’s excitement.

“Wash up. I should have dinner on the table by the time you get
done,” Fancy said.

He set Tina on the floor and washed his hands at the kitchen
sink. His overalls were dirty from the knees up where his rubber
boots stopped. His thermal knit shirt had frayed cuffs, and at least
two strands of hay were stuck in the back of his hair.

Fancy thought he was totally handsome.

He sat down at the head of the table and could scarcely believe
his eyes. “Would you say grace, Fancy?”

She made it very short for fear that he would go to sleep and fall
face forward into his plate.

She passed a platter to him. “I hope you like your steak medium
rare.”

He forked a T-Bone and laid it in the middle of his plate. “Yup.
Well done is a waste of good Angus.”

She made sure the rest of the food was within reaching distance, picked up Tina’s plate, and carefully cut a portion of steak
into bite-sized pieces for her. Then she added fried potatoes and
green beans.

Tina blew on the first bite of potatoes and then eased them into
her mouth. “Mmm,” she said as she chewed.

“Like those as well as mean beans?” Fancy asked.

Tina nodded.

“This is too good for words,” Theron said. “What did you do to
it?”

“Grilled it in a cast-iron skillet.”

“What’s the marinade?”

“That’s a family secret, and if I told you I’d have to …” She
paused and thought for a minute. Tina was listening to every word.
“… commit justifiable homicide, and I’m too tired.”

He smiled, and her heart melted.

“Thank you for doing this.”

“Don’t get too full. Tina and I made a little pan of brownies for
dessert. I found a gallon of rocky road ice cream in the freezer.
Thought brownies would be a good base for it”

“Are you up for sale?” he asked.

“Honey, you couldn’t afford me,” she answered.

“What’s your price?”

“Like I said, you can’t afford me, so there’s no use naming one.”

“What’s a price?” Tina asked.

“It’s the cost of something. When you go to the store and pick
out a toy, we pay what it costs at the checkout counter,” Theron
explained. “That’s the price.”

“Buy Fanny! You can have my bear. Take it back and buy Fanny,”
she said.

Theron laughed. “It’s not that simple, but we’ve got her for a few
days. At least until I can make some arrangements.”

They shared cleanup detail after supper, but Fancy insisted that
she get Tina ready for bed and read her a book. “If you don’t sit
down, Theron, you are going to fall down. You need to take all next
week off and catch up. You look like warmed-over sin on Sunday
morning.”

“Thank you again,” he said.

“What’s sin?” Tina asked.

“That, little girl, is something we’ll talk about much later, like
when you are in school.” Fancy took her hand and led her down
the hall toward the bathroom. Once Tina was bathed and in bed,
she ended up reading her three books before the child finally fell
asleep. Then she took a shower and donned her pajamas. She wasn’t
a bit surprised to find Theron snoring in his recliner in front of the
dark fireplace.

She poked his shoulder. “Hey, Mr. Warren, it’s time for a shower
and bed. You’re going to have a kink in your neck.”

He grumbled as he awoke. “I could have slept right there until
tomorrow morning.”

“I don’t think the school board would like you showing up in
overalls and that shirt, though. Get on out of here. And don’t wake
us up”

“You sleeping with Tina?”

“No, she needs to learn to sleep alone. I told her if she had a bad
dream, she could get into bed with me,” Fancy said.

“Good night, Fancy, and I really do appreciate all of this.” He
gazed at her for a moment, then headed down the hall toward the
bathroom.

She heard the shower running, footsteps in the hallway, the door
to his bedroom creaking but not shutting all the way, and a sigh
when he crawled into bed. She sat down in his recliner, still warm
from his body heat, and tried to find her way out of the maze of crazy
thoughts she’d had that day. Every single time she thought she’d found the answer, she ran into a dead end. Finally she turned off
the lights and went to bed.

Only to dream about Theron. They were sitting on the front porch
in two rockers. Longhorn cattle grazed in the pasture surrounding
the yard fence. The trees were shades of yellow and orange, so it had
to be fall. A truck kicked up dust as it came down the lane.

Theron looked at her and said, “There’s the first of them. Is the
turkey almost ready?”

She awoke before she could answer his question, and it was a
very long time before she went back to sleep.

Monday morning brought sunshine and sixty-degree weather.
Fancy’s first thought when she and Tina went out to get into the car
was that at least the schoolchildren would be able to play outside.
The first day back after a holiday was always rough on the teachers.
If the kids couldn’t go out and run off the pent-up energy, it made
for a very long day. She drove five miles under the speed limit and
kept a wary eye out for black cats when she passed the courthouse.