Teardrop Lane (35 page)

Rose spoke to Misty. “Your uncle isn’t answering his phone and Lori said in a text that he’s at the studio. I want to walk over there and see what’s up. Want to come with me?”

“Yes!”

The two-block walk took only minutes. As they approached the front door, Rose noted the closed sign in the window. “Let’s try the side door.”

Misty suddenly broke into a run, leaving the adults bringing up the rear.

Cicero propped his tired legs up on the table in the storage room, took a long pull of his beer, and tried to remember the last time he’d been this tired. He drew a blank.

He felt like he’d been run over by a cement truck. Then a gravel hauler. And finished off by a trash truck.

He dropped his head back, closed his eyes, and tried his level best to dismiss all the negatives. He reminded himself to think of the positives. He got to sleep with Rose every night. It was only the end of July.

He didn’t have a damned dog.

He tipped the longneck and savored the crisp, cold ale as the back door opened and a whirlwind burst into the room. Misty saw him, stopped short, her chest heaving.
Her eyes bright with tears. She held flowers in her arms. Flowers from somebody else.

“Keenan is right!” she accused, her voice brimming with righteous anger. “You are Uncle Skunk! You broke your promise to come to my play!”

He heaved a heavy sigh. He’d hoped to be able to finish his beer before this happened. He took one more sip of beer, then spied not only his wife standing in the storeroom, but also the Raffertys and the very last people in the world he wanted to see—the Parnells.

Oh, joy
.

He wasn’t brave enough to meet Rose’s gaze. He didn’t give a damn about Amy and Scott. He focused his attention on the unavoidable.

“Hey, Worm. How was the play?”

“I can’t believe you stayed here drinking beer rather than coming to my play.”

“Misty, let me—”

She was having none of it. “It was just like the spelling bee. Mom drank too much and forgot about it. I guess you’re both drunks.”

“Hey!” Cicero pulled his feet off the table. “You don’t talk about your mother that way, young lady.”

“She was my mom and I can talk about her how I want. You’re not the boss of me.”

“Yeah, little girl, I am. For a couple more days, anyway, I am the boss of you and as long as you’re living in my house, you will do as I say.”

“Then I don’t want to live in your house anymore!” His emotions churning, Cicero lost control of his tongue. “Well, sweetheart, don’t look now, but you’re about to get your wish.”

“Hunter …” Rose warned as he set his beer bottle on the table and stood.

“You’re telling her like this?” Amy snapped, her eyes flashing with anger as she stepped forward. “That’s not
what we agreed, Cicero. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. I spoke with a counselor about how to tell the children they’re moving back to Texas and she said—”

Oh, hell
.

“Amy!” Scott grabbed hold of his wife’s arm and gave it a shake. “Watch what you’re saying.”

With any luck, Misty had been too wrapped up in her own emotions to notice either his slip or her aunt’s, but one look at the girl showed him his run of luck hadn’t changed.

“M-m-moving?” she repeated.

Cicero took three determined steps toward the girl and dropped to his knees in front of her.

“Worm, I didn’t make it to the play tonight because as I was leaving for the theater, Lori showed up here with the kids. She was sick. Then the boys got sick. Daisy got sick. I’m so, so sorry I missed your play. It broke my heart to miss it, but sometimes life throws you a curve ball.”

“Sick? Everyone’s sick? Where are they? Are my brothers and sister okay?”

“They were throwing up. It was disgusting. I called Dr. Coulson and he gave me the skinny on what to do. They’re all okay. They’re asleep upstairs. I’m hoping Doctor Mom will go up and check on them.”

From the corner of his eyes, he saw Rose already moving toward the other room and the staircase to the loft where the younger kids slept. He breathed a sigh of relief.

Misty asked, “Why did Aunt Amy say we’re moving to Texas?”

The question was a knife to his heart. “Worm, when your mother got sick, she wanted the very best for you. She believed that your Aunt Amy and Uncle Scott were those people. I thought the same thing, too. Remember, I hadn’t met Doctor Mom, yet.”

“They didn’t want us,” she said in a little voice.

Amy covered her mouth with her hands. Scott placed his hand on his wife’s shoulder. Cicero noted their stricken expressions and for the first time, he felt a pang of empathy for them. “That’s not true. They wanted you. They still want you. You guys are lucky because everyone wants you.”

“It doesn’t feel lucky.”

Cicero reached out and gently tugged her pigtail. “Worm, here’s the deal. I love you with all of my heart. I would crawl to the moon and back for you. I am going to do the very best I can for you. You were happy in Houston before. You’ll be happy again and y’all can come visit when the weather’s good and not have to be here when snow is six feet deep.”

“I think they only want Daisy. They want a baby.”

“No!” Cicero gave her shoulders a little shake. “They want you all. Amy? Scott? Explain to Misty how all of the kids are equal in your eyes.”

At that point, he heard Rose’s horrified gasp and knew she’d seen the mess on the studio floor.

Rose knew immediately that the shards and fragments of broken glass lying beside the overturned display table was the Albritton piece. Horror filled her and acting instinctively, she gasped and turned back toward the storage room. “What happened, Hunt?”

“Keenan bumped into the table just right.”

“It’s the Albritton piece.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s broken?” Sage’s gasp was a repeat of Rose’s own. “Oh, no. Oh, no! That piece was a masterpiece. Can you repair it?”

“It’s shattered,” Rose explained.

Sage covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh, Cicero. That’s terrible.”

Anger flashed through Rose as she pictured it. “That careless boy. I’ve told him dozens of times not to run indoors. He truly is a bull in a china closet and what he’s done now—”

“Keenan broke your contest piece?” Misty asked in a squeak. “Is that why you’re letting us go?”

From the corner of her eye, Rose saw Scott Parnell turn to Sage and ask,

“What’s the Albritton piece?” While her sister explained the breadth of the disaster, Cicero met first Rose’s gaze, then Misty’s.

“No, don’t blame him. It was an accident. An unfortunate accident. The boy needed the bathroom, fast. He was trying to get there.”

Tears started rolling down Misty’s cheeks. She walked over to Cicero and hugged him. “I’m so sorry, Uncle Hunk. I’m sorry I got mad. I didn’t know.”

Rose’s heart broke and Cicero’s voice sounded husky as he said, “I love you, Worm. And that’s why everything is going to be okay.”

“Can I do anything to help?” Misty asked.

“Yes. Actually, yes you can. Run over to the Trading Post and pick up a box of diapers and some wipes. I used all we have and Daisy is in a towel and duct tape right now. Have them put it on my tab.”

“Okay, Uncle Hunk. I’ll hurry.” Misty turned toward the door, then hesitated. “Maybe—could duct tape fix the Albritton?”

“I’m afraid it’s beyond duct tape, but don’t worry.” He winked at her. “We have the Super Glue that’s gonna fix it just fine.”

Rose had seen the shattered glass. Nothing could fix that piece. It was beyond repair. Her gaze swept over the Parnells who waited to steal away her children. Shattered, just like our family, she thought.

As though he’d heard her despair, Cicero shifted his gaze her way. He winked at her, too. “Love and hope,
Bella Rosa
. Trust me. As bonding agents, they can’t be beat.”

At the end of the day from hell, fresh from a shower and wearing his favorite ratty sweatpants, Cicero joined his wife in the porch swing and tugged her close. “They’re all asleep. Finally.”

Rose idly trailed her finger up and down his fleece-clad thigh. “Did you get the boys to drink anymore water?”

“Yeah. I told ’em if they didn’t finish the glass, that you were going to hook them up to a tube that pumped it into them directly. Through their peckers.”

“Hunter!” She pulled away from him. “You did not!”

“I did,” he said, grinning with satisfaction as he pulled her back into his arms where she belonged. “You should have seen the looks on their faces. Horror turned to disbelief pretty quick, but they both drained their drinks.” He paused and his grin died. “It got their minds off their troubles, anyway.”

They had planned to wait until tomorrow to tell the boys about the move, but Keenan had awakened while Cicero and Rose were giving Daisy a bath, and Misty spilled the beans to him. He’d taken the news poorly, certain he was being punished for having broken the Albritton sculpture. Cicero finally talked the boy out of that notion—at least, he thought he had—but it had taken some work.

“I don’t like how Keenan is being so quiet. It’s like his little live wire has shorted out.”

“He’ll recover and recharge,” Rose said. “He’s young. They’ve lived here a few months, not a few years.”

Cicero pushed against the porch’s decking to set the swing into motion.

“Good months.”

“Yes, very good months.” She snuggled closer against
him and admitted, “My heart fell when I saw Amy in the back of the theater. A part of me had held out hope that they’d change their minds.”

“Me, too.”

The swing’s chains creaked rhythmically as they sat in reflective silence for a time. Eventually, she said, “You know, Hunt, I don’t have to live in Eternity Springs. Maybe we should think about moving closer to the kids.”

Cicero frowned. He hadn’t been expecting that one.

“Sage would shoot me dead. Then the rest of your friends would decapitate me and your patients would stick my head on a spike and stick it in the ground beside the city limits sign.”

“Now, Hunt—”

“Seriously,
Bellissima
. You are needed here. I don’t care how many physicians work at the clinic, you are this town’s doctor. You are the heart of Eternity Springs. We will visit the monsters, and the monsters will visit us as often as we like. That’s the deal we have with Scott and Amy.”

“I will miss them so much.”

“I know. I will, too.”

With a grouchy note in her voice, she said, “You have an awfully positive attitude about this entire evening.”

“You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen me adrift in a sea of vomit.”

She pulled away out of his embrace and turned to face him. Light from the porch lamp cast a golden glow across her face, and illuminated the wonder in her expression as she asked, “So what happened? How did you get from there to here?”

“I think I hit bottom when I snapped at Misty for her crack about Jayne’s drinking. That made me feel like such a dick. All night long, hell, all month long, I’ve felt so helpless. I’ve felt hopeless. Tonight, I stood in my
studio with the best work I’ve ever done lying in a shattered mess at my feet, knowing I’m losing a chunk of my family—again. Feeling like I’d let you down.”

“Let me down? No, Hunt.”

“I gave you a family. I couldn’t keep it from slipping away.”

“They’re going to Texas, not Timbuktu.”

“I know. And I also—finally—understand Dickinson. Because of you.” For what might have been the millionth time, he quoted the verse:

“ ‘Hope is the thing with feathers
.
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all.’

“Tonight, the minute those harsh words to Misty left my mouth, I looked over and you were there and I got it. It’s Dickinson, but it’s Tennyson, too. And, it’s Dr. Seuss.”

“Dr. Seuss!”

He leaned forward and captured her mouth in a firm, confident kiss.

“ ‘Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.’ But it’s bigger than that. It’s yoga in the morning and ice-cream cones on a summer night. It’s pub debates over fantasy baseball, hiking an Alpine meadow, and learning to braid pigtails that match. It’s sex on a beach on Bella Vita Isle. I wish I could better articulate it, but I’m not a writer, not a word person. But I
am
a glass artist. I can—I will—create it out of glass.”

Halfway through his speech, her eyes filled with tears. “I think you said it very well, Hunt Cicero.”

“Well, wait until you see it. It’s gonna blow you away. Might even win the Albritton.”

“I can’t wait to see it.”

“I can’t wait to get to work on it. I already know what I’m going to call it.”

“What?”

Grinning, he crooked his finger for her to lean toward him. When he had her ear, he whispered, “It’s a surprise.”

Then he nipped at her earlobe and nibbled his way down her neck, and soon finished off a truly challenging day playing with a different kind of fire.

On the first day of August, Rose watched the Parnells drive away with the children and bravely told herself she’d faced more difficult good-byes in her life. Elizabeth. Her father. Friends who’d lost their lives on the battlefields in Afghanistan. Today’s good-bye wasn’t permanent. In some ways, it made her life easier. Caring for four children certainly wasn’t the easiest way to begin married life. Nevertheless, she couldn’t recall the last time her arms felt this empty.

So she wrapped them around Cicero’s waist.

“And I thought our drive from Houston was bad,” he said, a little catch in his voice. “We didn’t have a puppy along for the ride, too. I can’t believe they didn’t board the dog at home.”

“They thought having the puppy along would keep the kiddos from being sad,” she said, trying to keep the bitterness out of her tone. She only partially succeeded.

“They damn sure thought wrong about that, didn’t they? Does it make me a bad person to feel superior because the kids didn’t cry when they left Houston, but they’re bawling when leaving Eternity Springs?”

“Not in my book.” Rose didn’t take her gaze off the Parnells’ car as it approached the intersection at Spruce Street. Once it turned and drove out of sight, she’d go inside and begin cleaning up after breakfast. To her surprise,
the vehicle sat. And sat. And sat at the intersection. She wondered if Galen was throwing a tantrum.