A Forever Thing (17 page)

Tina’s eyes glittered. “Pandy cakes.”

“Then pandy cakes it will be. We do have things to make those,
don’t we?” Fancy asked Theron, who sat on the sofa in silence.

“In the cabinet. The frying pan is in the oven. Can I hold her?”
he asked.

Fancy lifted her into his arms and covered them both with a
quilt.

“I cannot believe something this precious is mine,” he whispered.

Tina wiggled down into his arms, looking up at him quizzically
as if trying to decide if she was really going to believe that he was
her new daddy. Finally she said, “Read to me?”

“Of course. Did you bring your books?”

She hopped out of his lap and skipped across the room to a
small tote bag full of her most precious toys. She gathered several
books up into her small arms and carried them to the sofa, where
she unloaded them with a gush of air as if they weighed a ton. “I
like all of ‘em,” she said.

Theron picked up the nearest one. “Okay, then let’s read this
one.”

“I like this one better.” She handed him a Little Golden Book
about Cinderella and sat close to his side.

“Okay, then, we’ll read Cinderella while Fancy makes breakfast”

He looked over his shoulder at Fancy. “I’m in awe. She likes
books.”

“Enjoy it,” she teased. “There will be days when she’s not so
precious, and you’ll wonder if you’ll ever get her raised.”

He opened the book and read, “Once upon a time…”

in the middle of the morning Theron called his superintendent
and found out that school had been canceled for Tuesday as well.
The Thanksgiving holiday began on Wednesday, so if there was
going to be bad weather, it was at least the best time, because
they’d only have to close down for two days. Theron called the high
school boy who helped him occasionally on the ranch and hired
him to feed the cattle twice a day and to remember the cats and
dogs with water and food.

Fancy called Kate and asked her to call the ladies and tell them
she most likely wouldn’t be home in time to do their hair on Wednesday.

“Honey, you won’t be home until the weekend. There’s another
cold front coming in, this time with an inch or two of snow, and
the sun isn’t going to shine until Friday or Saturday,” Kate said.

“No! I’m flying home tomorrow night.”

“The airport isn’t flying anyone in or out until it thaws. You
wouldn’t be going anywhere if you were in Albany either, so suck
it up. Remember the fifteen-minute rule,” Kate said.

Fancy literally stomped on the floor. Theron looked up.

“So you’re in a remote cabin with Theron? How did you get
there?” Kate asked.

“By truck,” Fancy said.

“Stop pouting. You know you’re warming up to him, or you
wouldn’t be there, so make the most of it “

She whispered into the phone. “He found out he’s got a daughter,
and she was left here for him to claim like a … oh, I don’t know
what … an abandoned puppy or a stray kitten. He didn’t even know he was a father, and now he’s got a child who’s almost three
years old. It’s a shock. So don’t tell me not to complain. Just hush
and call Momma and the ladies, because I forgot my battery charger, and my phone is about to go dead,” Fancy said.

“Sounds pretty cozy to me,” Kate teased. “Is Fancy maybe protesting too much? But don’t worry. I’ll make the calls. Since you
can’t call out anymore, let’s get serious. Is there anything at the
house that needs to be done? Pipes freezing a problem? Anyone else
I need to call?”

“No, that covers it. I’m hanging up now to save what I’ve got left
in case of an emergency.”

“One other question. Why didn’t you call your momma? Did you
not want her to know you’re holed up in an ice storm with Theron
Warren? I won’t tell her if it’s a secret.”

“The detective is coming out in you. But, no. I tried but couldn’t
get reception to her. I was surprised when I got through to you,”
Fancy said.

“Find some paper, and write down all the details. I want to hear
the whole story when you get home. A kid? I bet he was freaked
out. Bye, and happy Thanksgiving!” Kate said.

The phone went silent. A loud crack close to the cabin startled
her.

“Who’s shooting?” she asked.

Another loud crack sent a huge pecan limb tumbling down to land
barely a foot from the porch. Theron opened the door and peeked out
through the screen. “Guess we’ll be cleaning up a mess come spring.
Sounds like the trees are loaded with ice and are breaking down”

She put the phone in her suitcase and held her hands in front of
the fireplace. The warmth was wonderful, but it made her fingers
tingle.

“You bring a charger for your phone?” Fancy asked Theron.

“Oh, no!”

“Got one of those cigarette-lighter kinds in your truck?”

He shook his head.

“Then you’d better make all the calls you want to pretty quick.
Reception is horrible, but we won’t have any when the batteries go
dead,” she said.

“I’ve got to call my folks to let them know there’s a possibility I
won’t be there for the holiday,” he said.

“We won’t be anywhere but right here,” she groaned. “Kate said
the airport is closed. There’s snow on the way, and the sun won’t
be out until the weekend,” she said.

“Snow?” Tina’s eyes lit up. “Snowman snow?”

“Maybe,” Fancy said.

“Or snow ice cream,” Theron said.

Tina and Fancy looked at him.

He laughed. “You make it out of clean snow, sugar, canned milk,
and vanilla. We only had it a couple of times when I was growing
up. Granny made it for us once when we were down here on a hunting trip.”

“Okay, then snowman and snow ice cream if we get enough,”
Fancy promised Tina.

The little girl giggled and jumped up and down

“This isn’t right,” Fancy whispered to Theron.

“What? That she can jump at her age? Is something the matter
with her? Do I need to take her to a doctor first thing?” he asked.

“No, that she hasn’t cried for familiar surroundings or people. That she accepts us the way she does. I’ve had first-graders cling to
their mothers and scream at the top of their lungs at the thought of
being separated from them. Someone should be shot right between
the eyes for doing this to her. She’s like a child in the system. She’s
been scuttled around so much, she doesn’t have any stability. Sure,
you’re her new daddy, but that can’t possibly mean much to her this
soon,” Fancy said.

“Yes, it does. She’s my daughter!”

At Theron’s raised voice, Tina put her hands over her ears and
ran to the nearest corner, where she sat down facing the wall and
curled forward. Sobs shook her tiny shoulders.

“That’s not what I meant, and don’t you ever yell like that in
front of her again,” Fancy hissed. “Go over to her and reassure her
that everything is all right.”

“I’m sorry I raised my voice,” Theron said as he knelt beside
Tina and touched her shoulder. She flinched but didn’t look at him.
“Fancy and I were just having a grown-ups’ discussion.”

She nodded but wouldn’t take her hands from her eyes. “Don’t
yell like Johnny.”

He gently rubbed her stiff shoulders. Theron looked up at Fancy
with questions written on his face.

Fancy had tears flowing down her cheeks. She crossed the floor
and sat down on the other side of Tina. “Daddy won’t yell anymore, and neither will I. Can you come out of the corner now?”

Tina turned around, drew her knees up under her chin, and studied both of them. “I’m hungry.”

“Then we will cook lunch, won’t we, Daddy? What can we make?”

“Chicken noodle soup?” Tina asked.

“You really talk well,” Fancy said.

“Not a baby anymore.”

Fancy took her hand and led her to the kitchen area, where she
drew a chair up to the cabinet and let her pour the soup from the
can into the saucepan.

“Do you take a nap after lunch, Miss Tina?” Fancy asked.

“On a towel on the floor,” Tina said.

“So you went to the babysitter’s every day?”

“Kay-Kay and me. Where the kids play.”

“Why did Maria leave her with Kayla if she was just going to
take her to a sitter anyway?” Theron mumbled.

“Night job, remember?” Fancy said out of the side of her mouth.

“Don’t touch the stove. It’s very hot,” she told Tina when she
turned on the burner.

“Okay,” Tina said seriously.

She ate a whole bowl of soup with crackers crumbled in it and
looked up. “Jell-O?”

“Not this time, but maybe if we can find some in the cabinet, I’ll
make it for supper. How about peaches?” Fancy asked.

“Yes, yes, peaches,” Tina said excitedly.

Fancy opened a can and cut up two halves into a small bowl.
Tina finished them and promptly started looking around. Finally
she crawled down off the chair and went to the bathroom, brought
a towel out, and laid it on the floor in front of the sofa.

“Since you’re the only little kid we’ve got here, why don’t you
sleep on a bed or the sofa?” Theron asked.

She thought about that for a second, picked up the towel and
handed it to Fancy, and hopped up onto the sofa with her doll and
shut her eyes.

“She’s trained well,” Fancy said.

“It’s kind of sad,” Theron said.

“I agree. It’s plain she’s spent her whole life in day care. Worse,
Maria and Johnny fought a lot, and Johnny’s yelling scared her.”

“That makes me sick. My three-year-old daughter should never
feel like that,” Theron said.

“Then change it. Chances are she won’t remember a lot about
those days when she’s older. You can start now to make her life
happy,” Fancy said.

“I taught seventh-grade math before I became a principal. Little
children are not my … my…,” he stammered.

“You’ll learn. Just be patient with her,” Fancy said. “Boy, you
sure do know how to pick a wife.”

“Look who’s talking. You were involved with Chris Miller,” he
shot right back at her.

“But I didn’t marry him.”

“And was that your choice at the time?” he asked.

“Why are you picking on me? I just meant that I can’t see you
married to someone like Maria. You seem so much more …” She
couldn’t find the right word.

“What?”

“Intelligent,” she finally said.

“It’s been said that when a person is in love, everyone looks like
an angel. I guess I wasn’t too intelligent after all,” he said.

“And I guess she wasn’t an angel after all,” she countered.

“You’ll never know how right you are. But I won’t make the same
mistake twice.”

“Good for you. What’ll we do for supper? More chicken noodle
soup?”

“I make fantastic spaghetti. There’s always meat in the freezer
and sauce makings in the cabinet. Those are things that keep. We
make spaghetti and chili and big pots of vegetable soup while
we’re here on a hunting trip.”

“Then you can be the chef tonight. Are we having chili for Thanksgiving?” The thought of not being with her mother on a
holiday for the first time in her entire life almost made her weep.

“No, there’s also a chicken in the freezer. We’ll do the best we
can to make a nice dinner, since it’s our first with Tina.”

Fancy caught that “our first,” but she let it slide.

Theron opened the freezer and brought out a white-wrapped
package labeled VENISON SAUSAGE and laid it on the cabinet to
thaw. He rustled around in the cabinet and found tomato paste, two
cans of diced tomatoes, an onion that had three-inch sprouts on it,
and a can of mushrooms. From there he went to the space under
the sink and pulled out a bottle of Merlot.

“Wine?”

“It’s not a great brand. We just keep a couple of bottles under
there for spaghetti sauce,” he said. “But there’s no real milk or
eggs, so our Thanksgiving dinner might be very limited.”

“We’ll simply have to be creative. And, buster, you’re going to
owe me one big favor when we get back home, because I’m missing a real feast,” she said.

“You couldn’t have gone to Florida anyway. You said the airport was iced in,” he reminded her.

“But I could have driven far enough to eat with any one of the
ladies who come to the shop for their hairdos, or I could have
made a dinner at home for just me. At least I have milk and eggs,”
she said.

“Okay. I owe you. One big favor of your choosing. Up to but not
including a walk down the aisle in a church.”

“That wouldn’t be a favor. That would be a jail sentence,” she
said.

“So glad we agree on something today,” he said. He diced the
onion and sauteed it in cooking oil. When that was done, he added
the tomatoes, mushrooms, and paste.

“When does the Merlot go in?” Fancy asked from the table,
where she watched each step. The cabin was beginning to smell
delightful.

“This simmers half an hour, and then I add the meat. When the
sausage is in the pot, then I add the wine and simmer the whole
thing for two hours.”

“Venison?” She couldn’t keep her nose from wrinkling.