He glanced out the window to look for her and instead saw Louise Parsons at her rental house across the street. He frowned, wondering if she’d rented it out again, and hoped that was to somebody trustworthy. With two six-year-old girls in the house, he was constantly on alert to keep their surroundings safe.
Then he heard little footsteps running up the hall and turned around just as Evie came running into the room holding her iPad.
“Daddy, I can’t make this work.”
He turned. The sight of the tiny blond with his wife’s face never failed to make his heart tug.
He sat down on the sofa with the iPad. Evie scooted up beside him, then leaned against his arm as he took a look.
“Is it broke?” Evie asked.
“Nope. Battery needs to be recharged,” he said.
“But I wanted to play with it now,” she whined.
He leaned over and tweaked her nose, then kissed the top of her head.
“Then you should have thought to bring it to me last night,” he said. “I’ll plug it in now, and it will be ready to play with later. Meanwhile, you and Beth can go outside and play. It’s too pretty to stay indoors.”
“Is Miss Roxie coming?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am. I think I hear her car in the driveway now.”
Evie got up on her knees on the sofa to look out the window.
“It’s her!” she cried, then jumped off the sofa and went running through the house. “Beth, Beth…the iPad is dead and Miss Roxie is here.”
Sam grinned as he got up to let Roxie in.
Roxie was shaking her head when he opened the door.
“I heard all that,” she muttered. “They’re in fine form today.”
“Dead iPads will do that to you,” Sam said as he took the iPad into the kitchen and plugged it into a charger. “I’ve got a prisoner to transfer this morning, so I’m going to head on down to the station. There’s homemade chicken noodle soup and stuff for sandwiches for lunch. Call if you need me.”
“You made soup?” Roxie asked.
Sam grinned. “I have my moments.” Then he turned around and called out down the hall, “Girls, I’m leaving!”
“Wait! Wait!” they shrieked as they came flying up the hall. “We have to tell you goodbye so you’ll have good luck.”
Sam caught them up in his arms, holding them close and kissing their noses and then their cheeks. He didn’t know where the ‘bad luck/good luck’ thing had come from, but it bothered him that they’d gotten old enough to realize his job had a level of danger to it, and that he was the only parent they had.
“I love you both forever. Be good for Miss Roxie,” he said.
“We will,” they echoed, then wiggled out of his arms and ran back into their room.
“They’re supposed to be making their beds,” Sam said.
“I’ll check on them in a bit,” Roxie said. “Have a good day.”
“Thanks,” he said. He grabbed his Stetson from the rack by the door, settled it firmly on his head, and left the house.
Louise was still in the yard, picking up trash from the flower beds and sweeping off the front steps. When she saw him coming out of the house, she waved and then went across the road to talk to him.
“Morning, Louise,” Sam said.
Louise nodded. “Good morning to you, too, Sam. I just wanted you to know that I’ve rented my little jewel. The school finally hired a new first-grade teacher for next year, and she leased my house.”
“Oh, yeah? The girls might wind up in her class. What’s she like?” he asked.
“All I know is she’s from Albuquerque. She was a first-grade teacher there, and she’s twenty-nine and single. Her name is Katie McGrath.”
Sam frowned. “That name sounds familiar.”
Louise knew why, but she wasn’t talking. Susan Wayne asked her not to, and that was the end of that.
“I don’t know any McGraths,” Louise said. “There were some McGills who used to live down near the south fork of Erby Creek, but they moved to Mississippi a few years back.”
Sam nodded. “Anyway, thanks for the heads-up. When is she coming?”
“Within the week,” Louise said. “How are the girls?”
“Fine and full of energy. Kindergarten gave them a big jump in social behavior. All of a sudden they’re trying to organize playdates because they want to go play with their friends from class.”
Louise laughed. “That’s girls for you, but knowing Roxie, she’s got her finger on all that.”
“Yes, ma’am, that she does,” Sam said.
Louise waved and headed back across the street as Sam got in the police car and drove away, already thinking about the upcoming prisoner transfer.
Meanwhile, word was spreading in town about the new teacher having leased Louise’s house. They all knew Louise never advertised it, which gave her more control over who would live there. So it stood to reason if she’d let the new teacher in the door, she must be something special. But, as was the way of small communities, opinions would be withheld until they’d seen and judged her for themselves.
***
Unaware of the swirling undercurrents of her imminent arrival in Borden’s Gap, Katie was cleaning and packing daily to the point of exhaustion. The upside of falling into bed too tired to blink was that the nightmares took a back seat to her exhaustion. She was walking around boxes by her last night in Albuquerque and so tired of the mess that she couldn’t wait to leave.
Katie called Lila and tried not to cry when they said their final goodbyes, because this was so what she wanted—needed. A fresh start, away from the possibilities of seeing her ex and his wife, and away from the place where she nearly died. She was going to Borden’s Gap as a stranger. It was a new page in her life just waiting for the first words to appear.
She went through the apartment, making sure everything was locked, turning out the lights all the way to her bedroom. Wearily, she crawled into bed and pulled up the covers, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the shadows.
She’d never had a nightly routine of prayers. Some of her foster families had been big on church and God and praying, but the way they’d treated her had led her to believe she wasn’t someone God would listen to. Then there were the other families, some of them good but frazzled by the number of kids they were keeping, while the others she’d been sent to looked fine on the outside but raised hell from morning to night.
She’d figured out at an early age that she should go along with the agenda of each family and keep her opinions to herself. Mark had been the first person in her life that she’d trusted enough to believe he would always have her back, and then he’d proved himself false, so here she was again, alone and figuring life out on her own.