Queen (27 page)

"I love you, too, Cody," she said. "And one of these days you'll be around to hear it."

She entered the house, locked the door firmly behind her, and went straight to the hall closet to pull out the package that Cody had brought to her days ago from the craft shop.

She tore it open and sighed with pleasure, smiling as the skeins fell across her lap in royal profusion. The yarn was precisely what she'd ordered—ten skeins—and the exact color of his eyes. The knitting needles she'd asked for had been poked safely into a thick skein of the deep blue wool, and the pattern book was at the bottom of the pack, just as she'd hoped.

"You gave me one of yours," she said, fingering the wool and remembering the sweaters that he'd outgrown and passed on to her. "I'll give you one of mine."

She ran through the house, quickly setting things to rights and starting the laundry she'd abandoned earlier. In no time she was through with the hasty cleanup and ready to sit down and begin her own special project.

She could hardly wait for it to take shape as she started a chain, knitting with quick, sure flicks of the needles, then turning at the end of the chain and beginning the purl back across. When Christmas came he was going to be so surprised.

The days fell into a calm routine. The boys went to school. Queen took care of the mundane details of the house and, when the mood struck her, drove into Snow Gap in Cody's Blazer to go shopping. Dennis and Cody dealt with the project at hand.

And gradually, Cody's sweater, and their lives, began to take shape.

"Are you gonna tell Dad?" Will asked J.J.

"What if it makes him mad?"

A sigh accompanied the snort before Will's comment. "He won't get mad, stupid. He always told us not to talk to strangers, remember?"

"Yeah, but we didn't talk to him. He talked to us, remember? We just ran away, right?"

There was little Will could say in argument to J.J.'s rebuttal. "I know, but if we hadn't run, what would that man have done? Maybe he'd have snatched us like that bad guy did Queenie. Then what, stupid?"

J.J. got quiet.

Queen's heart skipped a beat at the tone of their conversation. She stood in the hallway and continued to listen to the boys' conversation, unashamed of eavesdropping when their safety was at stake. What on earth had been happening to the boys that would make them not want to tell Cody? She'd never known them to be reticent with their father before and couldn't imagine what would be at the root of their fears. Then she got an answer she didn't want to hear.

"But if we tell him the man asked about Queenie… what if he makes her leave so the man won't bother us anymore? Then what, yourself, stupid?"

Queen sighed and buried her face in her hands. Oh, God! Who on earth could be asking questions about her? And why ask them of children who knew little to nothing about her past?

And then a thought occurred to her. Maybe it did not have to do with her past in Cradle Creek, but with the present. A swift vision of Lenore Whittier's angry face and bitter words crossed her mind before she knocked once and then pushed aside the partially opened door.

"Hi, guys. Get through with your homework yet?"

"Yeah, we're through," they replied together.

"Where's Donny?"

Will shrugged. "Maybe playing Nintendo… we don't know."

She sat down on the edge of the bed and wished Cody were there. "So, what's new with you?" she asked. "School going okay?"

They both looked away. "Fine, I guess," Will said, unable to completely ignore the woman who'd filled his life with peace and comfort.

"Making many new friends?" Queen asked, persisting in the hope that they'd open up to her instead.

"Some," J.J. said. "There's a neat guy who sits next to me in homeroom. He can burp anytime he wants. All you have to do is ask him… he'll do it for free."

"Wow!" Queen smiled and tried not to laugh, remembering the purpose of the conversation.

"That's stupid," Will said, poking J.J. on the arm.

"It's not, you're just jealous 'cause you're bigger and till can't burp like. Weeber."

"Weeber?" Disbelief colored Queen's voice. "Is that his real name?"

"Yeah," J.J. said. "Weeber… Michael Weeber."

"Oh." She'd forgotten about the male thing to call oeers by their surnames instead of their given names. It was a whole new world every day just waking up in a house full of men, no matter their ages. "Well, maybe he can come out and play with you sometime," she offered, and then added, "If your daddy doesn't mind."

"That'd be cool!" J.J. said.

The boys got quiet. Queen saw a quick look pass between them.

"Did your daddy ever tell you not to talk to strangers?" J.J. asked her.

"He sure did," Queen said. "And we didn't… ever. Not me. Not any of my sisters. They might hurt you."

Will nodded. "See, I told you so."

"Why?" Queen asked. "Has someone been bothering you?" She sensed J.J. withdraw, and yet she persisted. "You can tell me," she said. "I'll understand. Besides, that's what grown-ups are for… to fix what little guys can't."

J.J. gave in. "There was this man at school… he asked me my name, and when I told him, he asked me if I knew you. He asked me if you were nice. I ran away." J.J. ducked his head. "I didn't answer him. But if I had… I would have told him yes. I would have said you were nice, Queenie, honest I would."

She hugged him, angry beyond words that someone had interfered in a child's world enough to terrorize him, however innocent it might be. "Did he touch you?" she asked.

"No!" Will intervened. "We were inside the schoolyard. He was outside the fence. He can't come in, right?"

"He's not supposed to," Queen said. "Did you tell your teacher?"

J.J. shook his head.

"If it happens again, you must run and tell your teacher that a man is bothering you. Will you promise me that?"

J.J. nodded. "I promise," he said, relieved that he'd been given a solution and that no one was angry.

"What did he look like?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Just a man. But all weird."

Queen frowned. A child's version of weird might be quite different from an adult's. "Weird, how, honey?"

J.J. thought. "Well… he had on a long droopy coat, you know… the kind like Columbo on TV wears? And he had a big pointy nose and a real funny mouth. And the goofiest thing was his throat poked out when he talked."

Queen listened, absorbing his description and realizing that it was, for a child, quite thorough, even down to the description of an oversize Adam's apple that bobbed as he spoke. "Did he tell you his name?" she asked.

"Naw… I ran away too fast."

"Good boy!" Queen said, and hugged him, including Will in her praise. "Now promise, if it happens again… what do you do?"

"Tell the teacher!" they shouted in unison.

"Right! Now, if you're through with homework, I left a snack on the kitchen table. Don't make a mess… and don't fight. There's plenty for two, okay?"

"Okay!" they said, and burst from the room, leaving Queen alone on their bed, absorbing the news.

"Oh, Lord," she muttered. "Cody… where are you when I need you?"

But she knew where he was, at Lowry AFB completing the last of the proposal for the building site of the survival training camp. All she could do was wait for him to come home, and she already knew that it would be tomorrow at the earliest before he would.

She walked into her room, dug out Dennis Macon's card from her dresser drawer, and fiddled with it as she tried to decide if this was emergency enough to call Cody home.

Minutes later she decided that first things came first. Tomorrow she'd go to the school herself and talk to the principal, warn him that a man was lurking around the schoolyard. Then when Cody came home, she could tell him what J.J. had said, and what she'd done, and let him take it from there.

With the decision made, she went in search of Donny to tell him what she'd learned and ask him to be on the lookout as well. It wouldn't hurt to have extra bodyguards for a trusting seven-year-old.

Donny Bonner had inherited more than looks from his father. That night, after his talk with Queenie, he went to bed with a whole new attitude toward his two little brothers. They'd gone from being little pests to precious possessions. No one was going to bother his brothers. Not if he had anything to say about it.

Long after the boys had gone to bed, Queen sat staring into the embers of the dying fire and tried to remember her life before Cody and his sons. The more time passed, the harder it became to remember the ugliness of Cradle Creek and the mean, unforgiving way in which she and her sisters had often been treated. Her life was being filled now with something she hadn't known existed until she'd met the Bonners. Trust.

They trusted her to take care of them and, in turn, loved her for it. She loved them for the fact that they trusted her to do it. It was a good deal all the way around.

The phone rang, startling her out of her musings. She picked it up on the second ring and waited to hear the sound of his voice.

"Queen?"

She forgot she hadn't answered. "Hi," she said, and laughed softly. "I knew it was you. I forgot to say hello."

He chuckled. "As long as you don't forget about me, we're okay."

"I think you're safe," she said.

"If I were there, you wouldn't be," he said, and sighed as he heard her breath catch. Just listening to her talk made him hard. "Anything new?" he asked.

Then she remembered. "Yes, there is," she said. "But I think it can wait until you get back. You're coming home tomorrow, aren't you?"

"You've got my promise," he said, and then he thought about the hesitancy in
her voice. "Are you sure you don't need to talk? The boys aren't sick. You're
not afraid, are you? If you are, then I'll—"

"Cody, I'm fine, they're not sick, and what I need to tell you can wait. Okay?"

He sighed. "Okay. But I hate like hell not being there when things like this happen."

"You'll soon have everything in working order, and things like this won't happen. Besides, I can take care of things all by myself." She felt compelled to add, "Most of the time. Remember, that's why I'm here, so you can be there."

"No, lady. That's not entirely true. You're in my house because you're in my life. I love you, honey. Sleep tight. I'll see you tomorrow."

"'Night, Cody. I love you, too."

She hung up before he had time to answer and then smiled. That hadn't been nearly as difficult to say as she'd imagined. Of course, the fact that she hadn't had to face him when it came out had influenced the decision.

The phone rang. She picked it up with a grin.

"Damn you, woman. You wait until I'm hours away and the only connection between us is a telephone line?
My God, my lady… do you know how long I've waited to hear you tell me that?"

Cody dropped back onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling, aware that if wishes could fly, he'd already be airborne.

Queen closed her eyes and absorbed the texture of his voice as it wrapped around her soul. "No, but if you hurry home, I might be tempted into saying it again… sometime soon."

"Ah, Queen, my heart is already there," Cody said, and disconnected as suddenly as he had called.