My Three Girls

Dana’s chest tightened. The girls weren’t trouble. Jean and Ollie had cried a little because they wanted to go home, but Karen had comforted them with adultlike pats and soft words, and they’d quickly settled down.

For their dinner, Dana had scraped together three scrawny peanut butter sandwiches. She rooted through her kitchen cabinets looking for something that came from the fruit and vegetable portion of the food guide. She rose triumphant with a jar of peaches given to her by a parent. Laid out on the Corelle, the dinner didn’t look too bad. Three pairs of large eyes, so stoic that a lesser woman would have wept, stood in the door of the kitchen, not even daring to enter.

“Dinner’s on the table. Why don’t you come in and eat?” she’d invited with a small smile.

“I’m not hungry, Miss Ritchie,” Karen had said, her voice polite. She had her arms around her sisters. Ollie whispered something to Jean, who put her hand to Karen’s ear. Karen listened and then looked up again. She reported, “But the girls are, so I guess they should eat. I don’t need to.”

“Come, all of you,” Dana ushered them into the kitchen and got them seated. She should have put her arm around Karen and let her know that she didn’t have to carry all that responsibility, and that everything was going to be all right. But Dana had done that before.

After the girls were settled and eating, Dana called her mother on the phone in her bedroom. “Have you called the police?” her mother had asked as soon as Dana had explained the day’s events.

“Yes.”

“Good.” Her mother was emphatic. “I don’t want you to get involved. Remember what happened last time.”

Last time.

At first, her concern for the little kindergartener named Adam was strictly professional, then as the situation with his drug-addicted mother became clear, it turned to fond sympathy, followed quickly by a love she didn’t believe she could feel for a child who wasn’t hers. It changed her from a carefree young woman heedlessly taking an ordinary path from college to career to husband to children to fierce protector of the most innocent and underprivileged. No one could have predicted that all the love she’d had for Adam could vanish with one cold and ugly act. After that she’d changed again. This time into a woman who never wanted to be touched—emotionally or physically.

Her parents had stood by her the entire time, never questioning her decision to resign from her position at a progressive urban elementary school to sign on here. They’d simply helped her move. It was then that her mother—with a reassuring peck on the cheek—had warned her about hiding from her grief. But her mother had underestimated Dana’s resolve. Dana was a smart, capable woman. If anyone could dodge grief, she would. She would conquer it by working so hard that her brain became numb.

One of the girls whimpered and Dana was brought back to the present. Karen, Jean and Ollie were fast asleep, their heads hanging at awkward angles. Dana looked at the stacks of papers in front of her, accepting the fact she wasn’t going to get them done. She went over to the girls and straightened them out on the couch, placing a granny-square afghan over them. Adam had lain under this same blanket, giggling as he peered at her through the holes.

Karen opened her eyes. “Are they here yet?”

Dana shook her head. “Soon.”

“Can’t we stay here? This is comfortable.” Her gray eyes were serious. “Momma said she’d be back on Sunday.”

Dana couldn’t keep them until Sunday. That was out of the question. They needed some motherly attention, a bath and clean clothes, real meals. Dana couldn’t give them that.

“You’ll be best off with people who can take care of you.” Dana spoke in a practical tone. She knew where the conversation was leading as Karen’s lips pinched together to keep them from trembling. Jean moaned again.

“Is Jean okay?” Dana asked with concern. Before she could stop herself, she’d moved toward Jean and put a gentle hand on the small forehead.

“She’s fine,” Karen said quickly. “She has bad dreams sometimes.”

Karen nudged her sister with her foot and Jean’s eyes struggled to open. She was disoriented and her face crumpled with fear.

“It’s just me, Jean,” Dana soothed, the waves of some indefinable emotion washing through her. “You’re okay.”

Jean’s face cleared and her eyes closed; clearly she’d never fully woken up.

“You can take us,” Karen said, her voice small but brave.

Her back to Karen, Dana squeezed her eyes tight as she readjusted the afghan. “No, I can’t. It’s not right.”

She ventured a look over her shoulder and felt even worse as Karen’s eyes swam with tears. “Yes, it is. We get along okay at school, don’t we?”

Dana couldn’t answer that question, so she answered one that made her feel better. “A nice lady or man from Child Protective Services will come pick you up and find you a nice place to stay.”

“All of us? Together?” Karen asked anxiously.

“I’m sure they’ll try their best,” Dana hedged and dropped her hands from the crocheted coverlet. She couldn’t adjust the afghan forever.

“Why can’t you keep us?” Karen’s clear treble had a pleading edge to it.

“I’m your teacher. Technically, I’m not even supposed to be baby-sitting you. And we need to know that you’re okay if something happens to your mom.” As soon as the words came out of Dana’s mouth, she wanted to take them back. Karen, if possible, paled more.

“Do you think she’s in trouble?”

This was another one of those situations in which a normal woman would tug the eleven-year-old into a tight hug and whisper heartfelt reassurances. Karen looked as if she would welcome that. Instead, Dana patted her arm. “I’m sure she’s okay. But it’s good that you’ll be with people who can take care of you. Try to get some sleep. They should be here soon.”

CHAPTER TWO

BRADY RAPPED on the door. He checked his watch and adjusted his belt, his heart beating erratically. Ridiculous. This wasn’t a hostage situation; these were just little girls. Of course, it didn’t help that he couldn’t remember their faces or even the littlest one’s name. Olive? Oleander? Would Bev actually name her daughter after a bush? He doubted that. Would he even know his nieces? They certainly wouldn’t know him. He knocked again, automatically surveying the grounds. The school sat to the left of this small house.

“Just a minute,” came the muffled response.

Brady looked at his watch again and stared at the front door. He heard rustling, then the door opened a crack and one eye peered at him. He noticed the flimsy chain on the door and the rotting wood it was clinging to. An intruder would have no difficulty entering this residence. A hefty shove would topple both the person attached to the eye and the door. Hardly safe for a woman living alone. He’d never met the schoolteacher but he didn’t think that an elderly woman should be living out here all alone. He made a mental note to talk to her about safety.

She opened the door a little wider with a breath of relief. “Deputy…” She looked around him as if she was expecting someone else.

“Are you okay, ma’am?”

She nodded. “I’m just surprised.”

“Surprised?”

“I thought that Child Protective Services would have at least sent a woman, since these are three young girls.”

Brady swallowed, not wanting to lie to her. “I was sent out to evaluate the situation,” he said instead. He wasn’t sure who this was. Was she the schoolteacher’s daughter? He couldn’t stop staring at the freckles splattered across her nose as if someone had taken a paintbrush and flicked it at her. She couldn’t be a day over thirty. Her plain T-shirt was tucked neatly into some well-fitting jeans, making her seem more youthful than she probably was.

She stepped back and gestured for him to come inside. “I am so glad you were able to get here on such short notice. I’m Dana Ritchie, Panoche School’s teacher.”

Brady hid his surprise as he stepped through the doorway. “You live alone, right?”

“Yes,” she said abruptly. “Is that a problem?”

Brady wondered what was making her so defensive. “No. But you ought to get the door frame done in steel. And get a dead bolt and a peephole rather than that chain. You might want a dog for some additional protection.”

She blinked at him, a small smile coming to her lips. “I’ll talk to the school board about that on Monday. I’m not sure a dog is in my contract.”

Brady stepped farther into the foyer, pulling out his notebook. “Now, what’s the problem?”

She put her finger over her mouth, tilting her head in the direction of the living room. “The girls are sleeping,” she whispered. “They’ve been waiting a long time.”

Brady swallowed. There was always a chance that these weren’t his nieces.

“May I see them?” he asked.

She nodded and quietly walked toward the couch.

Brady looked down at the sleeping girls. Their hair was falling over their faces, so he couldn’t tell. Then the oldest girl’s eyes popped open, wide and gray, guarded.

“Uncle Brady.” It was a flat statement, surprising him. He didn’t think Karen would recognize him. She’d only been seven when she’d last seen him.

“Karen.”

“Uncle Brady?” the schoolteacher asked.

Brady stared at the woman who faced him, her head tilted, her eyes ready to do combat for these girls. “Brady Moore. I’m their uncle, their father’s brother.”

HE WAS THEIR UNCLE. These girls had family! Dana nodded and moved away, leaving Karen and the deputy watching each other. She was sure that he wasn’t displeased by Karen, but he was glowering at the little girl. Surprisingly, Karen didn’t blink. Her jaw tightened, but she never broke eye contact.

Quickly on the heels of the relief that came from learning the girls had family were second thoughts. How could Dana let these girls go off with a man who didn’t even smile?

She glanced at Karen whose fingers poked through the holes of the afghan as she clutched it close to her. She didn’t seem frightened, but neither was she reassured by the presence of her uncle. Dana took a deep breath and surprised herself by laying her hand on his arm.

“Deputy,” Dana said to break the tension. He shifted his sharp gaze to her, and she tilted her chin to stare back. If Karen wasn’t going to be intimidated, she wouldn’t be either. She supposed he couldn’t change the angles of his jaw to make him seem less authoritative or alter the keen intelligence in his eyes to make him appear less intense. She tried not to notice the flat crease of his pants. Meticulous. Not a hair out of place, not a little bit of five o’clock shadow.

On top of that, she noted with irritation, he was damn composed, given the situation he was in. Shouldn’t he show just a smidge of embarrassment at his sister-in-law’s behavior or some other kind of emotion that indicated this was a big deal? If Karen’s reaction was any gauge, they weren’t close. Yet Dana could feel him radiate a peculiar—for lack of a better word—detachment that she found more disturbing than his physical presence. His eyes swept over the room as if he was used to evaluating everything he saw.

She didn’t know why a hot flush began to inch up her neck. She wasn’t ashamed of her modest home. The furniture might not match, the rug was a brown, teal and purple throwback to the seventies, and the only decorations were student art projects from years before, but the place was clean and she liked it. So what if it screamed spinster schoolmarm.

He looked at her hand. “That grip is lethal.”

Her face grew hotter when she realized she’d been clutching his arm. She abruptly dropped her hand and swung it behind her back.

“Maybe you should explain a few things,” she suggested, glancing at the girls, all of whom were awake now.

Instead of responding, he watched the girls get off the couch and move over to Dana—who tried not to appear startled when Ollie’s arm wrapped around her thigh.

“So, who do we have here?” he asked. Apparently, he realized that his glowering wasn’t helping, because he crouched to give them a better look at him and kept his voice even and modulated. It sounded like a voice he used to calm, to hypnotize. Dana was impressed. She didn’t want to be, but she was.

The same couldn’t be said for the girls. They didn’t say a word.

“I’m your Uncle Brady.” He tried again with a smile, addressing Ollie but looking at Karen. “I’m sure you don’t remember me. You were just a baby when I last saw you. You sure have grown.”

Silence.

“I guess your mom is gone?”

Dana had to give him points for trying. She prodded Karen, but the girl wasn’t going to talk. Her gray eyes were huge as she sent Dana a silent plea to intercede.

“She went to a conference,” Dana said, looking at Karen for confirmation.

Karen nodded and tugged on Dana’s arm. “Miss Ritchie,” she whispered.

“Yes, Karen?” Dana kept her voice low, though she knew Deputy Moore could hear every word they were saying.

“Don’t let him take us.” Her face had turned white.

“He’s not going to hurt you, Karen. He’s family.” Dana’s soothing words had the opposite effect on the girl. All the stoicism Karen had shown earlier was suddenly replaced with deep and uncontrollable sobs. Jean quickly started whimpering in sympathy.

The deputy looked at Dana for help, but she didn’t know what to do.

“D-don’t let h-him take us, Miss Ri-ritchie,” Karen begged, her pleas coming out in an agonized rush. “We’ll be good. We’ll be so very good f-for you. We’ll do everything you say and we’ll help around the house. W-we won’t be any trouble.”

Biting her lip, Dana reached out a hand and gave Karen’s shoulder an awkward pat. “Karen, I know this is a scary situation for you…” Even to her, her words were meaningless. When had she became so empty, so devoid of compassion that she couldn’t gather a scared child into her arms and comfort her? Dana felt as if she had a dry piece of bread stuck in her throat. This was how it started. It only took one hug to open a heart. No matter how much Dana wanted to make this situation right, she couldn’t.

She backed away, feeling as alone as Karen looked. She whispered into Ollie’s ear. “I think Karen really needs a hug from you and Jean, don’t you?”

Ollie let go of Dana’s leg and flung her short arms around her older sister. Jean followed suit and together, the three girls sobbed.

“Can you keep them tonight?” a voice asked, low in her ear. She hadn’t even seen him move, but he was right next to her and Dana felt her face flush under his steady scrutiny.

What a cold woman he must think she was. She turned away from him, not too numb to feel a tremendous amount of regret about that. She crossed her arms and pressed them closely to her chest to keep control of any feelings that threatened to erupt from within.

“I think they’ve been through enough,” he continued, just for her to hear.

Dana could only nod as those unwanted emotions easily made their way through her barriers.

“You’ve been through a lot as well,” he observed.

“I’m fine.” Dana made her tone brisk and stepped away from him. She straightened her shoulders.

“You don’t look fine.”

“I’m fine,” she repeated. “When you know me better, you’ll realize I look like this all the time.”

BRADY STARED at the woman in front of him, her body so stiff that it seemed as if she would shatter with the smallest of impacts. No one could look this way all the time. Her jaw was rigid. Her face was pale, her hands clenched into fists that hardened the muscles on her forearms. It seemed to take everything out of her to simply nod.

“It’s pretty late,” Brady said, projecting his voice in order to be heard over the crying. “I think it’s better if we found a place for the girls to sleep here. What do you think, Miss Ritchie?”

“Yes.” The demons she was fighting were gone, and she was back to business. She reached out to the children. “You’ll be fine here tonight.”

Brady watched the schoolteacher stretch tentative fingers toward Karen’s hair. Her hand trembled as if she was afraid she would be burned from the contact. To help her, Brady knelt next to Ollie and put gentle hands on her tiny shoulders. She looked up, tears still in her eyes, but she wasn’t afraid of him.

“I’ll show you where the spare bedroom is,” the schoolteacher said.

Ollie shook her head and hung on to Karen tighter.

With ease, Brady extracted the youngest girl from the trio and lifted her up.

“Oooh!” Ollie exclaimed with a delighted smile.

“Let go of her!” Karen jumped up, trying to grab Ollie. “You’re not taking her anywhere.”

“It’s late,” Miss Ritchie said. “Your uncle is just taking Ollie to bed.”

Karen stopped jumping, uncertain. “Bed? Here?”

“Yes. Where you should have been hours ago.”

“So does that mean we’re not going with him?”

Brady tried not to feel stung by the relief in Karen’s tone.

“For now. It’s too late for you to go with your uncle. Your mom may make it back by tomorrow. So it’s probably better for you to be here tonight.”

Karen looked relieved and then turned to Brady with her arms open. “Give her to me. We can put ourselves to bed,” she said. After he complied, Jean held on to the back of Karen’s shirt, and the trio made their way down the hall. Ollie looked back over her sister’s shoulder at him.

“G’night.” She gave him a small wave with her fingers.

“Good night. I’ll see you in the morning,” he promised.

Karen turned in front of a bedroom door. “That’s okay. We’ll be fine. You don’t have to come back.” With that announcement, she and her sisters went into the room, Miss Ritchie behind them.

While he waited, he called dispatch and let them know the situation was taken care of, but that he would be at the residence for a while gathering information. He looked at his watch. He only had two hours left on this shift. The call complete, he took a more careful look at the small house. He studied the walls that were filled with a variety of construction-paper artwork. Lopsided snowmen shared equal space with tissue-paper mosaics. In the corner, there was a neat stack of egg and milk cartons. There was also a full box of cans stripped of their labels. He wouldn’t have to be told that a teacher lived in this house.

He heard a sound behind him and turned to find the schoolteacher standing in the doorway. Her hands were behind her back and she stared at him with those dark eyes of hers. There was a pain in them that he couldn’t understand and, for some reason, wanted to. He’d noticed there was no ring on her finger and remembered that the girls called her “Miss Ritchie.” Why was such a young woman holed up in such an isolated place?

She seemed to be waiting for him to say something, so he cleared his throat. “Well, thank you.” It didn’t hurt to start with a thank-you.

“I can’t keep the girls.” The words were surprising in their bluntness.

Before he could discover what had motivated her to say them, Brady had to know what had happened to Bev. “Do you mind going through how the girls happened to be in your care in the first place?”

“Would you like some coffee?” she asked, obviously realizing this wasn’t going to be a quick process.

“Yes,” Brady answered easily. The task would give her something to do. Then she might relax enough to give him the kind of information he needed.

Brady watched her measure the coffee and put it into a filter, her movements careful and precise. He tried not to smile when she pulled from the cupboard the smallest coffeemaker he’d ever seen. He could down that much coffee at break fast alone. She obviously wasn’t addicted. She glanced up and their eyes met just for a split second. Brady swallowed hard. For a complete stranger, this schoolteacher had the oddest way of looking right through him.

She hurriedly plugged the coffeemaker into the wall before walking from behind the counter. “Why don’t you sit down,” she offered as she pointed to the table that separated the kitchen from the living room. “The coffee will only take a few minutes.”

Brady sat, and she joined him, placing her forearms on the wooden table. She looked ready to answer questions.

“Why don’t you tell me what happened?” He made his voice as friendly and conversational as he could. The tone worked, because he could sense that she relaxed a little once she realized he wasn’t going to grill her.

She said, her words stark, “Their mother came by after school today and told me she didn’t have a baby-sitter. She had to attend a conference this weekend and asked me to look after the girls. I told her no.”

“Is that something you did often for Bev?”

She shook her head. “Never. I don’t baby-sit my students. I have them from seven forty-five to two-thirty. That’s all. No other parent has ever asked me to.”

“But you have the children.” He sat straighter. He could see a thin shield of defensiveness creep over her.

“Yes.”

“So why don’t you tell me how you came to take care of the children?”

The question was straightforward enough, but the schoolteacher took a long time to answer. “I found them.”

Brady felt a chill run down his spine. “Where?”

“Sitting on the picnic table.” Her arm gestured in the general direction of the schoolhouse. “I didn’t finish working until nearly nine o’clock.”

“On a Friday?” he asked skeptically.

She flushed. “I have a lot of work to do. I’m not just the teacher. I’m the principal, too. I’ve got a ton of forms to fill out.”

“No offense,” he apologized hastily. “I just thought an attractive woman like yourself would have plans on a Friday night.”

Her lips twisted into a wry smile. “There’s not a lot of action around here after hours. What man in his right mind would drive an hour for a date with a woman who spends her day talking to children?”

Brady would consider it. If those eyes asked him, he’d consider doing almost anything for her.

“The children were sitting out there, waiting for me,” she continued. “Thank goodness, it’s a fairly warm night and that it was me. There’s not a lot of traffic, but those girls were unsupervised for several hours. Anything could have happened to them.”

DANA CLOSED HER EYES as the realization struck her. Anything. Anything could have happened to them and she wouldn’t have known. Some stranger could have abducted them while they waited for her. Guilt pulsed through her.

“That isn’t your fault,” the deputy said.

She lifted her eyes to his as she felt slapped by terrible images from the evening news. There was no censure in his face, just empathy.

He continued on in that deep, rumbling voice. “Anything else?”

She didn’t want to like talking to him. She didn’t want to like the fact that this strange man at her kitchen table made her more comfortable than anyone else she’d met since coming to teach here.

She started to feel sick. She’d been awake too long and she desperately needed sleep, but she was so keyed up that she knew she wouldn’t be able to. She swallowed, pressing her hands together so hard she saw the veins pop out on her forearms. She told herself to relax, but then jumped out of her chair to pour the coffee.

“Cream or sugar?” she asked.

“No.”

“That’s easy,” Dana commented. She held out the cup.

He wrapped his large hand around it and her hand as well. The cup nearly disappeared in his palm and her fingers felt engulfed by his. Dana couldn’t stop looking at his hand, the unyielding, tanned skin and the prominent veins that traveled up his forearm to disappear in the dark hair. She tugged her hand away and sat down, pushing the chair back a foot or two to give herself some breathing room. Suddenly, it was very hot in the house.

“Any idea whether she would go north or south?” His eyes were fixed on her forearms. A small crease appeared between his eyebrows, but his expression remained pleasant.