High Plains Hearts (29 page)

Fast-forward from the orphanage to a woman kneeling in the parking lot, a small boy at her side, and holding a ladybug on her fingertip so it could fly away home—the image came to him and would not leave.

For the moment, the youth of Resurrection had to be his major concern, his only concern.

He rubbed his hands over his face. He needed sleep. But could anything protect him from his dreams?

“Is your afternoon free?” Marnie asked Lily.

Lily flipped her appointment calendar open. She had been in Wildwood almost a week, and each of those days had been satisfyingly busy.

“At this point, it sure is. Just paperwork, paperwork, and more paperwork,” she answered cheerfully. “Why? What’s up?”

“Victoria Campbell will be in later today.” Marnie’s demeanor had changed somehow, but Lily couldn’t put her finger on exactly what it was. “Can you possibly see her?”

“I suppose I can,” Lily replied. “Who is Victoria Campbell?”

Marnie’s posture told her this was important, so Lily closed the file and gave the older woman her full attention.

“Victoria Campbell owns Wedding Belles,” Marnie said, fairly bristling now with disapproval.

Lily nodded. “I’m sorry. You’ve got me at a disadvantage here. What is Wedding Belles?”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Marnie came into the room and perched on the edge of Lily’s desk. “Wedding Belles is where everybody who’s anybody goes when they’re fixing to get married. It’s very hoity-toity, very posh.”

“In other words, very expensive?” Lily asked.

“Oh, yes indeedy.” Marnie’s face began to redden with indignation. “I can’t believe she’d come here and ask for our help. Her, of all people.”

“What kind of help?”

“Day care. Her little darling, Edgar, needs a place to go while Victoria redoes her suite.”

“Redoes?” Lily felt like a duck pouncing on a June bug. “What do you mean? Did she have flood damage?”

“Well, I’m sure she did. We all did. There isn’t a house or business in this town, except those way out on that new northeast side development, that didn’t take water.”

“So what’s the problem, Marnie? What am I not seeing here?” She spoke slowly and carefully. From what she’d seen of Marnie, she wasn’t the kind of person to go off on a wild whim. No, there was some reason under all this that was making Marnie upset.

Marnie straightened her back. “It borders on gossip, Lily. I’m not sure what I should tell you about what she did to us here.”

“Does it have anything to do with the day care?” Lily asked.

Marnie shook her head with determination. “No. Absolutely not.”

Lily rubbed her forehead. This was not an auspicious start. “Perhaps this is one time when I should be left in the dark.”

The church secretary seemed to weigh Lily’s words, and at last she nodded. “That makes sense. If you do decide you need some gaps filled in, though, I’ll help you.” She stopped and bit her lip before continuing. “I will say this, however. There’s no love lost between that woman and me, not after the shenanigans she pulled here, so don’t be surprised if I’m not her biggest cheerleader.”

Lily patted the woman’s hand. “I understand. I’ve known people like that. But if I’m going to make this day care succeed in the spirit we intend for it to, I need to not let those kinds of things bother me.”

Marnie sighed. “I know. But it’s hard, this always trying to be like Jesus.” She stood up and walked out the door, pausing to grumble. “Though personally, I think if He’d known Victoria Campbell, even His patience might have been tried.”

Oh
, Lily thought,
it’s going to be an interesting day!

She turned back to the file and was soon immersed in the paper trail of objectives and permissions.

But soon something wonderful wafted toward her office and into her senses. Before she could form the idea of what exactly the source of the delicious smell was, Ric poked his head in the door.

“Hungry?”

He held in his hands a familiar red-and-white-striped bucket from which emanated the aroma of fried chicken. Her mouth immediately began watering, and she nodded.

“Then follow me,” Ric invited and led her back into the church office where Marnie had set up a folding table and laid out the plastic forks and paper napkins.

The three of them sat down, and Ric blessed the food with a familiar grace that Lily recognized as being the same one they’d used for dinners at Shiloh.

As they dug into the fried chicken, they discussed the morning’s events. Ric told of the twins he’d seen the night she’d arrived, and then again this morning. “Joy says the doctor says they’re perfectly healthy, even if they are a bit smaller than usual.”

“How much did they weigh?” Marnie asked, wiping her face with a napkin. “This is great chicken.”

“How much did the chicken weigh or the twins?” Ric teased. “Well, to be honest, she told me, but I don’t remember. But they’re little, about, oh, this size.” He held up his hands first six inches apart, then ten, then eight, and then gave up. “They’re little.”

Marnie shook her head. “Honestly, Ric.”

“Sorry,” he said, looking sheepish. “So, in an obvious attempt to change the subject, Lily, how’s it going?”

“I’m beginning to get a picture of the history of the day care,” Lily reported. “It looks like everything is in order, at least as near as I can tell at this point. I’ve got a call in to the fellow who’s overseeing this in Bismarck, and when he gets back to me, I can start to move along faster.”

“Sounds great!” Marnie said.

“How’s our enrollment?” Ric asked.

“Well, we’re at max,” the secretary reported. “And that’s looking to be a problem down the line. Very shortly down the line, as a matter of fact.”

Ric laid down the piece of chicken he was eating and looked at Marnie. “What do you mean?” he asked her. “What kind of problem?”

“People still need day care. Some need it on a part-time basis, some on a full-time basis. So far I’ve been juggling it, offering one person half a week and another person half a week, so at least they have something, but that’s always been a temporary fix. Folks need to get back to their jobs.” Marnie looked as if she might break into tears. “I don’t know what else I can do.”

“Why don’t you let me work with it?” Lily asked. “I can call Bismarck and see if we can get a temporary raise in the number of children we can tend.”

Ric turned and looked at her. She had his total attention. “Do you think they’ll let you do that? Can we take in more children?”

“I don’t know,” she confessed. “I’d like to say yes, but the fact is, they’re concerned about the children’s well-being and their safety, and that does mean a lower ratio of children to provider.”

“What if we could offer more providers?” He looked at Marnie. “We’ve got Eileen, but we probably could get some of the church members to help out.”

“Well,” Lily said, “possibly. But it keeps circling back to whether they think that would be in the children’s best interests. And in this case, maybe yes, maybe no. We’d just have to see.”

“How soon would you be able to find out?” he asked eagerly.

“I’m not sure who the person is that I’d talk to,” she said. “I suppose if I can talk to the right person, we could know this afternoon.”

Ric leaned back and smiled. “That would be utterly fantastic!”

“But”—she held up a warning finger—“that is just spoken permission. I’d like us to wait for the written okay unless the official gives the go-ahead to take more children without that.”

“And how long would that take?”

“A couple of days.”

“It’d better be soon,” Marnie said. “I don’t know how much longer Lily can wait on this.”

“Oh, surely a couple of days would be all right,” Ric said easily. “What harm could be in that?”

“What harm? What harm?” Marnie pushed her chair back with such vehemence that it screeched across the wooden floor. “Do you know who called this morning looking for day care? Do you know? You don’t know, do you! It’s that woman, that awful, awful woman.”

Ric shook his head in confusion. “Who are you talking about?”

A waft of aromatic and clearly expensive perfume joined that of the fried chicken. And from the door of the office a throaty voice answered, “I believe she’s talking about me.”

T
he group of three froze for an instant and then whirled in unison to gape at the speaker who stood in the doorway to the office, her back erect and her chin held high with just a hint of haughtiness.

“Victoria, welcome,” Ric said, leaping to his feet and pulling out a folding chair. “Come join us.”

She managed a polite smile before shaking her head slightly. “I don’t believe so, but thank you for asking me.”

Lily tried not to stare at the woman. She was a vision in white and gold, two colors that had always appealed to Lily as the epitome of wealth, more so after Todd was born and anything white became a luxury.

Especially when the white was white linen. Lily had owned only one linen thing in her entire life—a tan A-line dress—and it had the most amazing property of wrinkling when she was standing still. If she were to sit in it, or even wear it while driving, the slightest wrinkle became a deep, abiding crease. She’d always felt as if she looked like she had just crawled out of a laundry bag when she wore it.

But Victoria’s white linen suit was unwrinkled. The gold accents at her neck, ears, and wrists looked real. Her matching golden hair, however, Lily was sure was not. At least the color wasn’t. Perhaps the hair was.

She was pretty, in a brittle sort of way. Underneath the thick application of black mascara that weighed down her eyelashes were eyes the color of rich chocolate. Lily stood up and walked over to the door. “I’m Lily Chamberlain,” she said. “It’s nice to meet you. I believe we had an appointment this afternoon, and if you’ll let me tidy myself up a bit, we can get right down to it.”

Victoria’s eyes flashed uneasily from Lily to Ric and then Marnie. “Are we meeting in here?”

“No, I have an office closer to the day care. Why don’t you come with me, and we can talk down there?” Lily tried not to look at Ric and Marnie, although she knew their expressions would be telling.

Victoria’s impression of Lily’s office was clear from her expression. She obviously had been expecting it to be something on a grander scale, but she graciously took a seat in the folding chair Lily offered.

“What can I help you with?” she asked the woman who sat poised on the folding chair.

“I need day care for my son.”

“That’s what we’re here for.” Lily opened the drawer on her desk and withdrew a file from which she took a paper. “First we need to have you fill out this application. Here’s a pen—”

Victoria Campbell shoved the pen and the application away and smiled winningly at Lily. “Do I really need to go through all this paperwork? Surely not. Can’t I just bring Edgar in?”

“Edgar is your son?”

Victoria nodded, and briefly the mask of sophistication fell from her face. Lily saw there pure love for her little boy. “He’s six. And no trouble at all.”

“I’m sure he isn’t,” Lily responded. “But the fact is that the state requires these papers to be filled out.”

“Oh, it’ll be fine. I’ll bring Edgar around nine tomorrow morning.” Victoria started to pick up her purse.

“Edgar can’t stay here without the paperwork,” Lily said. “It’ll only take you a few minutes to fill it out. I’ll help you.”

The blond woman picked up the application and put it in her purse. “I’ll take it with me and fill it out at home tonight. Then tomorrow when I drop off Edgar, I’ll leave this application, too.”

“Mrs. Campbell—” Lily began, but the woman interrupted her.

“Please call me Victoria. Everyone else does.”

“Victoria, I cannot stress to you enough how important this particular sheet is.” Lily tapped the file folder. “We can’t take every child who needs day care, unfortunately, and we use this as a screening device.”

“Screening? How?” Victoria edged closer to Lily’s desk.

“We have to establish a hierarchy of need. For example, if a person might lose her job because she needs to go back to work and her prior day care is closed, that would give her priority. Or if there’s a health concern while a home is being sanitized. Income is also a factor in determining who we select.”

“Income? How?” Victoria leaned forward toward Lily even more.

“Well, if the parents’ bank account is fairly well depleted, then they clearly don’t have the resources to hire private care. But if there’s a regular income that’s not been affected by the disaster, then we have to take that into consideration.”

Victoria seemed to consider what Lily had said. Then she said, “How public is this information? No one sees it except you?”

“I can’t promise that. If there is an investigation of some kind by a governmental body, such as a licensing board, then our records would be opened to them. But even so, they are not supposed to share the information they find there. Does that answer your question?”

Victoria shrugged. Even that little motion seemed so elegant when she did it. “Locally, though, how private is this information?”