Page 100 of Tempting as Sin
“Nah,” he said. “If I were, I wouldn’t have got it so wrong at the start, and you wouldn’t have wasted all that time hating me. I’m an actor, that’s all. It’s my job to see people.”
“Ha,” she was saying when the doorbell rang. She jumped up so fast, she bonked Chuck under the chin. “Sorry,” she told him, then realized she was apologizing to a dog and followed Rafe out into the living room again.
He didn’t tell her to calm down. He didn’t tell her anything. He stood back, and she opened the door. Charmaine Hopkins stood on the porch, and behind her, still holding her pillowcase, halfway up the stairs—Bailey. Looking small. Looking all the way locked down.
“Hi,” Charmaine said. “I brought somebody for you. Come on up, Bailey.”
Bailey couldn’t, not exactly. Not with Chuck barging past all of them and practically knocking her over in his eagerness to welcome her home. Charmaine stepped inside at Lily’s invitation and told her, “Congratulations on getting through the process so fast. I have to say, I was skeptical that anybody could get an addition done in a week. Maybe you want to send those guys over to do my kitchen.”
Lily smiled, and Charmaine cast a sardonic glance at Rafe. “Good thingyouweren’t applying,” she said. “It’s a violation to lie to the county.”
“That sounds so sordid, though,” he complained. “Let’s just call it making life more interesting. That’s a beautiful dress, by the way.”
“Yeah, right,” she said. “Tell it to somebody who believes in the tooth fairy.” Her cheeks were a little pinker, though, and Rafe laughed. “You need to remember,” she told Lily, serious again, “that you have three months to complete the classes to finalize your license. This one is provisional only. I do need you to sign a couple papers and leave some papers for you, and then I’ll take off.”
“Sure,” Lily said, then hesitated. Bailey still hadn’t come inside. She was hovering out there like a butterfly checking whether it was safe to settle. “Come on up,” she told the girl. “Come in, so you and Chuck don’t get any more mosquito bites.”
Bailey looked up at last. “I don’t think dogs get mosquito bites.”
“Actually, they do,” Lily said. “But I was just checking to see if you were paying attention.” And Bailey smiled. Not a big one, but she smiled, and she came inside, too, bringing her pillowcase with her. “In two minutes,” Lily told her, “I’m going to show you your new room, and you are going to be amazed at how good it looks. Like it was always there. But I have to sign this first, so you can stay with me.”
“OK,” Bailey said. She sat down on the rug, and Chuck plopped right down with her, put his head in her lap, and rolled over to show his hairy belly, inviting a scratch. Bailey obliged, and there his hind leg went, fully expressing his ecstasy at being reunited with his girl.
Bailey would do for now. Lily signed the papers, said goodbye to Charmaine, and shut the door behind her. And then she showed Bailey her room.
“I only did the butterflies,” she told her. “I left the rest of the walls bare. I thought you’d like to pick out your own pictures for everywhere else. A bulletin board above the desk, maybe, a big one. Then you could pin up whatever you wanted.”
“OK,” Bailey said. She still had her backpack on, and she was still holding her pillowcase in front of her like a shield. She was wearing one of her new outfits, though. The shirt with the stars, her favorite. Lily could imagine her putting it on this morning, packing her pillowcase, sitting on a bed in a room that wasn’t hers, and wondering if it were really true. If she’d really be coming here. Pulling out her animal book, maybe, to escape the creeping fear that it was all a mistake and she had to stay.
Lily thought again,What would Mamá do?And thought,Love her where she is.She dropped to her knees in front of Bailey, the same way she’d done in the library. Rafe was in the living room, still. Giving them space. Lily said, keeping her voice gentle, “You can put your things down, sweetie. You can put your books on the shelf and your clothes in the drawer. Hang your jacket in the closet and put your toothbrush by the sink. This is your room, and it’s your bathroom, too. This is your home, right here with Chuck and me. You’re here to stay.”
“Are you going to get other kids?” Bailey’s eyes searched Lily’s. Wary and brown. A fawn who’d lost her mother, trying to find a safe place, without enough defenses to survive. She broke your heart. At least, she was breaking Lily’s. “You get money for foster kids,” she said. “You get more money if you have more.”
“Oh, sweetie,” Lily said helplessly. “No. There’s just you. Rafe had an idea, though. Would you like to go see your grandma? Has anybody taken you yet?”
Something flickered in Bailey’s eyes. “No. I thought maybe she died.”
Lily was going to cry, but she couldn’t, not yet. That could wait until she was alone with Rafe, when she could let her guard down, could stop being strong for a little while and let him hold her. Right now, she needed to worry about Bailey’s guard. “No,” she told her. “She didn’t die. She’s getting better, and they let her out of the hospital. She’s in a nursing home, though, getting some strength back. It’s here in town, and you can go see her every day if you want. You can even ride your bike there.”
She saw it, then. The softening of Bailey’s shoulders, the movement of her throat as she swallowed. The girl blinked twice, three times, then whispered, “OK.”
“OK,” Lily said. She didn’t hug her, not yet. Later today, though, she would. Maybe. She’d see. “Chuck missed you, and so did I. I missed you so much. I told you I’d get you back, and I did.”
“You said night and day,” Bailey said. “Did they really work night and day? The guys?”
“They really did,” Lily said. “At least, they worked past five o’clock every night.”
“On one of my grandma’s shows,” Bailey said, “it’s about remodeling. They take the family away on a vacation, and they don’t know they’re getting remodeling. Then they come back and they’re always really surprised. They do remodeling night and day, because the family always has a really sad story that makes people cry. Like a kid in a wheelchair or something. Do you think they’re letting my grandma watch her shows and smoke? That’s what she likes to do. Also she likes powdered doughnuts in a bag. Do you think they’ve got doughnuts there?”
Lily thought about the wisdom of powdered doughnuts as a nutritional choice, then tossed the thought aside. She didn’t think Ruby was likely to embrace a more healthy lifestyle, and she also doubted it would matter a lot to the eventual outcome. Rafe had found out a fair bit more about his “aunt’s” condition from the nurses before Ruby had been released. “I’m one hundred percent certain they aren’t letting her smoke,” she told Bailey. “I imagine she’s watching every one of her shows, and if you like, we can stop at Walmart on our way to see her and buy her a bag of powdered doughnuts.”
Bailey’s face cleared. “Good. She’ll be grouchy if she doesn’t smoke, but she’ll feel better if she has doughnuts.”
“Then,” Lily said, getting to her feet, “let’s get this show on the road. Unpack your things, put your dirty laundry in the hamper up by the machine, and come get a snack, because I’ll bet you’re hungry. Then we’ll go see your grandma.”
“Do I still get to take Chuck?” Bailey asked. “And weed, and feed the chickens? And stay at the shop with Hailey, if I’m in foster care?”
Lily said, “You still get to do everything. I promise. I put a little armchair in the back room at the shop for you, in fact, so you can sit and read, when you’re not sewing or helping Hailey or out playing with your friends. Now get yourself unpacked and let’s get going. You live in the country now, remember? There’s always another chore to do in the country.”
