I'll Stand by You (24 page)

Besides all that, Bart wanted biscuits and gravy for supper, and she wasn’t in the mood to cook. If only she could take back what she’d done the night of the fire, then none of this would be happening. She thought about taking her licks and admitting she was wrong, but then worried about how she’d be received afterward. In the end, maintaining her reputation was more important to her than feeling guilty for ruining Dori Grant’s.

She turned away from the window, went to the desk, and began digging through five years’ worth of phone books before she found the one she was looking for.

She’d gone to school with Ethel Carter; she’d been Ethel Justice then. Ethel was a caseworker for their county’s Division of Family and Children Services. DFCS. The same dreaded department that tried to take Johnny Pine’s brothers into state custody.

Pansy Jones was about to open up a great big can of worms.

* * *

Runoff from the downpour flowed through the streets in dirty rivulets. The rain blew against the windows and hammered the roof in a steady, repetitive drone. It was music to sleep by, and Dori slept, exhausted by the day and the emotional toll.

Johnny lay stretched out on the living room sofa, listening to the excitement in his little brothers’ voices as they played in the other room, and he felt like crying. They’d missed so much of what being a child was all about, and he’d been so busy trying to keep a roof over their heads that he hadn’t seen it. Dori was good for them—for all of them. He didn’t want her to go. He killed time by watching television and catching up on paying bills, then popped some corn and shared it with the little animals beneath the table.

Along about a quarter to six, Johnny went into the kitchen and began digging through the refrigerator to make supper. The boys heard him and emerged from their play long enough to make a request.

“Hey, Johnny, can me and Beep eat supper in our cave?”

Johnny grinned. “Yeah, sure, as long as you don’t throw the bones down on the floor.”

“We won’t! We promise!” Beep yelled and began leaping about the kitchen on his hands and feet.

“What are you doing?” Johnny asked.

“I’m a baby wolf playing in the rain.”

Johnny chuckled and started picking out a couple of pieces of leftover fried chicken to heat up for the boys.

“I want mine cold,” Marshall said.

“Yeah, I want mine cold too,” Beep said and then stopped hopping and looked at Marshall. “Why do we want it cold?”

“Because we’re wild animals, remember? They don’t eat their food cooked.”

Beep frowned. “I don’t want no raw chicken.”

“You don’t want
any
raw chicken,” Johnny said.

“I already said that,” Beep cried and bounced all the way back into the cave.

While he was digging through the leftovers, the baby woke up, which got Dori out of bed. She changed him and carried him to the kitchen to heat up a bottle.

When Johnny saw her coming, he got one out of the refrigerator and put it in her hand.

“Thanks. You are handy to have around,” Dori said as she took the bottle to the microwave.

Johnny smiled, but she didn’t see it. She was playing peekaboo with Luther while she waited for the microwave to ding. As soon as it was ready, she cradled Luther in her arms and poked it in his mouth, then leaned against the counter to let him drink while she watched the boys crawling in and out of the cave in an obviously pretend foray for food.

“They are having so much fun,” she said softly.

Johnny stuck a spoon in the leftover baked beans and then got plates from the cabinet.

“You’re really good with them,” he said.

Dori shrugged. “It’s not hard to like good kids.”

“Seeing as how we no longer have a dining table tonight, why don’t you and Luther go into the living room, and we’ll eat in there? I’ll bring you a plate if you trust me to fix it.”

“Sure, but don’t put much food on it. I’m not very hungry.”

“Okay,” he said and fixed food for the boys and set it down in front of the cave. “Wolf food is ready,” he said. “Put your dirty plates in the sink when you’re through.”

They howled in unison, took their plates, and crawled back in the cave.

He was still chuckling as he took their food into the living room, set her plate on the sofa beside her, and went back to get drinks.

Dori took a bite of the chicken and then licked her fingers as Johnny put a glass of iced tea on the end table.

They ate in silence for a few minutes while Luther finished his bottle. It wasn’t until Dori put him on her shoulder to burp him that Johnny put down his plate and leaned forward.

“I’ve been thinking about this situation,” Johnny said.

Dori stifled a groan. He’d probably heard Pansy Jones’s gossip. This was where he told her she needed to find someplace else to be.

“I know I need to start looking for a place for Luther Joe and me. I’ll get a newspaper and check out the rental properties,” she said quickly.

“No, no, that’s not what I meant at all,” Johnny said. “I want to run something by you and see what you think. Keep in mind it’s totally your call, and I’ll be cool with whatever you say, but it would benefit me as much as it might help you.”

“I’m listening,” Dori said and kept patting Luther’s back.

“First off, we like having you here,” Johnny said.

Dori smiled. “I like being here too. You were a lifesaver.”

“I know the funeral is over, but you said Butterman has yet to file all the probate papers, so you really can’t make final decisions on anything until all of that’s over, right?”

“As far as I know, that’s correct,” she said.

“School will be out in a couple of weeks. I always have a really hard time finding people to keep the boys during the summer, because Miss Jane doesn’t do all-day day care and she also takes the summer off. I don’t believe you will be able to find a job that pays enough for rent, day care, and living expenses. Believe me. I know what they pay people our age.”

She sighed. “I’ve already been worrying about that. What I have to do is finish my college courses so I can set up my design website and start taking clients. Eventually, I would hope to make enough to work from home full-time.”

He shifted nervously, trying not to sound too desperate.

“How would you feel about staying here, maybe through the summer or however long it takes you to finish your classes? And in return, you could take the boys to school and pick them up for the two weeks until it is over, and then this summer, you would be here with them while I’m at work. You wouldn’t have to be paying rent, and I would save money not paying day care.”

Luther burped.

Johnny grinned. “If that was his opinion, I’m not sure if that was a yes or a no.”

Dori was still trying to come to terms with what Johnny had just asked while thinking about Pansy’s accusation.

“You know what people will say,” she said.

He shrugged. “They’re already saying it.”

She sighed. So he’d heard the gossip too.

“You don’t mind?”

Johnny shrugged. “The way I see it, we’re both trying to keep our families intact any way we can. I don’t see anyone else offering to shoulder our burdens, and I’m willing to chance it if you are.”

Dori didn’t have to think twice. The moment she’d heard the offer, the relief she’d felt had been visceral.

“I would love to be able to stay here for a while longer.”

He didn’t know he’d been holding his breath until she spoke. He exhaled slowly and tried not to look too excited.

“I promise you won’t need to worry about…uh, that I would assume anything personal would happen between us.”

“I trust you,” she said softly.

“Good. Then it’s settled,” he said.

She nodded. “Yes, it’s settled.”

Chapter 15

Dori woke up Sunday morning with tears on her face. She didn’t remember what she’d been dreaming, but it didn’t matter. Her reality was explanation enough.

She rolled over onto her side and got up quietly, so as not to wake up the baby, then darted across the hall to the bathroom and back again before she got caught in the hall in her nightgown. Once inside her room, she began sifting through her new clothes to find something to wear and settled on another clean shirt and jeans. Sometime today, she’d do laundry again.

She could smell coffee brewing as she dressed and knew Johnny was up. She didn’t know what the Sunday routine was in this house, but she remembered hers.

Sunday breakfast was usually pancakes, then getting ready for church and listening to Granddaddy singing “The Old Rugged Cross” as he shaved.

And bracing herself to show up in church as the unwed mother she was, putting up with a combination of overdone pity or disdain.

Granddaddy hadn’t seen it, but then men rarely hear the sarcasm behind a woman’s sharp words and sweet smile.

Ordinarily she dressed without looking at herself, but today was her birthday, and in the eyes of the law, she was no longer a juvenile. She didn’t feel different but wondered if she looked different. One glance and it was plain to see she was still the same too-thin girl she’d been yesterday, but whatever decisions she made from this day forward would be hers to make. And her first decision was to ignore the day of her birth. For the first time in her life, there would be no celebration. As Beep would have said, she was too sad for cake.

But as it turned out, sad had no place in her day. Luther woke up smiling, and when she got him out of bed to bathe, his antics made her laugh. Taking care of him took her out of herself, and her dark mood soon lifted.

She had him on her hip and was on her way to the kitchen to make his oatmeal when the boys came out of the kitchen, their feet dragging.

“Hi, guys,” Dori said.

“We had to take the cave down,” Marshall muttered.

“We can’t be wolves no more,” Beep added.

“You can build it somewhere else,” she said.

Their expressions shifted to one of instant relief.

“Really? It doesn’t have to be the table?”

“’Course not,” she said. “You saw how we did it yesterday, so take it into your bedroom. You can tie corners to one end of the bed and then find something else to hold up the other end. You’ll figure it out.”

They bolted back into the kitchen at high speed.

“Johnny! Johnny! Wait, don’t wash them quilts!” Beep yelled.

Dori chuckled, and when she did, Luther crowed, trying to mimic her sound. She laughed.

“Monkey see, monkey do,” she said and tweaked his nose as the boys came flying back out of the kitchen, dragging the quilts behind them.

Johnny was cleaning up breakfast dishes when she walked in.

“Sorry we were late.”

He shook his head. “You’re not late. They were up at the crack of dawn wanting to play some more. I ruined their party when I told them they had to give the table back. I don’t know what you said, but whatever it was, thanks.”

“They’re making another cave in their room.”

“Ah. Usually they mope around when they can’t go out and play. This may be the best rainy day in this house ever. Can I make you breakfast? It won’t take long to make a little more oatmeal.”

She shook her head. “Thanks, but I’m just not hungry. I’m going to feed Luther his cereal. I might eat some toast later.”

He frowned. “Don’t skip meals. You can’t keep up the strength you need to take care of him if you get run down, okay?”

She looked up. “You sounded like Granddaddy just then.”

“Smart man,” Johnny muttered and pointed to the cabinet. “I’m going to make a run to the grocery store this morning. If you need stuff, add it to that list. I’m going to go change the sheets on their bed before they get the new hidey-hole all set up.”

Dori fixed Luther’s cereal and then cradled him in her arms to feed. Tomorrow she was getting a high chair, but right now, adding items to the grocery list came first.

* * *

It was also raining in Oneida, the next town over.

Some of the less faithful worshippers in the various churches had opted to stay home, rather than slog through the rain to be chastised for their shortcomings. Others’ plans to go fishing had been shifted to sleeping in or driving into Savannah for a day out at the mall.

For twenty-three-year-old Frankie Ricks, the rain had in no way dampened his curiosity about what was going on with Dori Grant. He was completely worthless and something of a gigolo. He got what he needed from willing, and sometimes unwilling, women, because of a better-than-average resemblance to the actor Johnny Depp. But he wasn’t dumb, and he was really good at waiting for handouts. Today was a bust, so he kicked back in the recliner in his apartment and reached for the phone. No way was he going out to eat in this downpour. He was ordering in.

* * *

Pansy wasn’t going to church. She’d used the “I have a headache” to get out of sex with Bart last night and was going to lay low in her bedroom today to continue the ruse. Fearing the news of her smackdown from Dori Grant was probably common knowledge by now, she couldn’t face her church friends and was fed up with Bart. Since he’d caused all of her troubles, he should be miserable too.

When he came back to their bedroom to get dressed for church, he gave her “that look,” the one where she was at a disadvantage and he had an itch needing to be scratched.

“I see that look on your face. Just because I’m in bed doesn’t mean you can take advantage of me, Bart Jones. I’m sick, and you will respect the misery of my condition, do you hear me?”

Bart glared. “I didn’t say a thing.”

“You didn’t have to,” Pansy said. “Go about your business and give the pastor my regrets.”

Bart paraded around in his birthday suit, a less than sexy image considering his paunch and skinny ass, not to mention a poor excuse for an erection. He kept casting hopeful glances in Pansy’s direction as he took his Sunday suit from the closet.

Pansy was getting nervous. “For Pete’s sake, Bart Jones, put your pants on. I’ve seen all that before.”

He paused. “How about just a little poke, Pansy? I wouldn’t take long.”