Page 27 of One Touch

“Found it after the cabinets were removed.”

She bent down, and her fingers moved over the horizontal lines. Dates, names, heights—covered up when the kitchen had been updated years ago. When I had found it, my finger had moved over her name—Katie.

“This is ... I think it’s my mom’s handwriting.” Emotion was thick in her voice as she bent down for a closer look.

“I thought it might be important.”

She looked at me, hope swimming in her eyes. “This whole wall is going?”

I paused, but nodded once.

Kate cleared her throat and stepped back to snap a picture of the wall. She turned and pasted on a tight smile. “Pretty neat.” Her dismissive shrug shot a pang beneath my ribs.

Well, that won’t do.

“The storm is here.” Clutching the bottle of wine, she gestured toward the window as fat raindrops started to fall. “Want to wait it out? Have a glass with me.”

Kate set the bottle on a stack of boxes. She rifled through one markedkitchen crapand dug out two vintage glasses with cartoons on the front. With her teeth, Kate pulled the cork from the bottle of wine and poured it with a heavy hand.

“Here.”

I turned the cup to see a blue teddy bear with a rain cloud on his belly and a scowl staring back at me.

I lifted my brows at her. “Care Bears?”

“Grumpy Bear. I thought it was perfect for you.”

“Which one do you have? Pain in My Ass Bear?”

“Har har.” She turned her glass to me. “Bedtime Bear, my second favorite.”

I nodded and took a tentative sip. “Makes sense. Bedtime Bear doesn’t like those five a.m. wakeup calls.”

She shot me a bland look. “Bedtime Bear is strong and brave and stands guard to ward off bad dreams.”

A ripple of sadness washed over me as I thought about young little Kate needing something like a Bedtime Bear when she was scared. The Sullivan kids had been dealt a shit hand.

“If he’s your second favorite, then who was your favorite?”

Kate grinned and my heart pounded. She gestured toward me. “I always liked the grumpy one.”

With a sly smile, Kate turned away from me. I sucked in a deep breath and tried to tame the wildly inappropriate thoughts that rattled through my skull.

Walking to the open space, Kate threw a thick moving blanket on the floor and plunked herself down. She patted beside her. “Sit with me. My feet hurt.”

I looked over her red sneakers as she toed them off and shook my head.

“What?”

This time, I didn’t hide my smirk. “Nothing.”

Folding my legs, I lowered myself and sat across from her. Kate leaned back and dug through another box, pulling out a rusty coffee can full of pennies and a deck of cards on top.

“Still raining.” She wiggled her eyebrows at me. “Wanna play?”

I sipped the wine and dismissed the fifty reasons why it was a bad idea. Namely, Kate was borderline tipsy. “What’s your game?”

Looking all too satisfied with herself, Kate smiled as she started shuffling. “Texas Hold’em.”

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