Page 49 of Sweet Home

“He isn’t?” West asked Elizabeth.

“No, Daddy,” Elizabeth said very seriously. “His shelf isorganized. He needs to beclean.”

“I see,” West said. “Should I give him a bath?”

Elizabeth nodded her head up and down hard.

“All right, then,” West said, before lifting the little horse so that it was eye to eye with him. “Now listen here, horsey. I’m giving you a bath, and I don’t want a lot of hassle about it.”

Elizabeth’s eyes got really big, and Dulcie tried to hide her smile.

“Here we go,” West told the horse, lowering it slowly into the water.

They all watched intently as the horse got partly submerged. Then suddenly West’s eyebrows leapt up as he made the horse jump out of the bowl, making a funny whinnying sound as he did.

“What in the world?” West demanded. “Get back in there, you. No horsing around.”

But the horse galloped away across thetowel and hid under Elizabeth’s leg. There was a second of silence and then Elizabeth shrieked with laughter.

“Go backin,”she laughed. “Goin.”

“I think he wants you to give him his bath,” West suggested.

“You go in nicely,” Elizabeth warned the horse, picking him up and talking to him just like her dad had done.

Of course the unruly animal cooperated with his mistress. Dulcie chuckled when Elizabeth praised him for being a good horsey.

West scrambled up and turned to Dulcie.

“It sounds like she had a great day,” he said with a gentle smile. “Thank you for helping her have so much fun. I didn’t expect you to make dinner. I was just going to order out.”

“We made it together,” she told him honestly. “Right, Elizabeth?”

“It’ssoup,” Elizabeth called out to him. “I helped.”

“Should we invite Grandma and Grandpa over to try it?” West offered. “It’s not every day that their granddaughter makes soup for dinner.”

“Yes,” Elizabeth said. “Yes, yes, yes.”

“Is that okay with you?” he asked Dulcie.

She smiled and nodded, amazed that he had even asked. This was his house, obviously he could invite over anyone he wanted.

“I’ll just get changed and give them a call,” he told her.

She watched after him for a moment, feeling happy that he was happy.

I could get used to this…

15

WEST

West gazed out his bedroom window at the snowy woods. The way the hillside rose up behind the house sometimes made him feel a little claustrophobic—as if he had been hemmed in, stuck forever in this tiny town in the middle of the frozen farmland.

But today, he saw it as he imagined Dulcie might, and he felt sheltered, as if the house were held in the embrace of the mountain.

She loved it here—that much was clear. Each day that passed, she seemed less uncertain and more confident.

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