A Family to Cherish Read online

  She frowned.

  “Hair spray.”

  “Oh.” She grinned. “Of course.”

  “So multiple sources of heat and flammable liquids. Brett Stanton and Bud Schmidt do the fire code inspections for the town. They’ll check thoroughly to ensure everyone’s safety. Code is important.”

  “I’m beginning to see that.”

  “Listen, Meredith—”

  “Cam, I was kidding.” She sent him a more solemn look. “Of course fire codes and building codes are important. I just saw my brother go through all this with his new subdivision. I get it. Really.”

  “Matt’s doing new build.” Cam’s voice took on a teaching air. “We’re upgrading old. That presents a host of different problems.”

  “All of which drive costs up.”

  His shrug said that was a given.

  “So these windows.” Meredith ran her fingers along the wide, dark trim surrounding the old glass. “Can we modify them or do we have to replace them? I want to do what’s right for the house while keeping in mind my budget.”

  “Which is?”

  The figure she named thinned his mouth. “You either need a bigger budget or go step by step.”

  “That pricey, huh? Even with my help?”

  “Your…what?” Cam faced her, surprised.

  “My help.”

  “As in?”

  She hoped he didn’t mean to be as offensive as he sounded, but the look he swept her outfit said he meant it all right.

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  Don’t go all knee-jerk, Mere. Remember, he only knows the girl you were. Not the woman you are. “I redid my entire place in Maryland. Not the skilled stuff like trim and moldings and cupboards. But the patching, painting, papering. New light fixtures. All me. I’m not afraid to get dirty, Cam, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  His guilty look confirmed her assertion and reaffirmed her first instincts. No way in the world should she and Cam be working together. She decided then and there to let him bow out gracefully. “Listen, it was nice of Matt to suggest you and all, but it’s probably better if I find someone else, don’t you think? Considering our history…”

  “Ancient news and there is no one else, at least no one who’s approved by the Landmark Society. That approval saves a whole lot of time because they trust me to do the job right,” Cam told her as he squatted to examine the floor. He frowned, scribbled a note, then rose in a fluid move that said he stayed in shape, a fact she’d noticed first thing. The dark brown bomber jacket fit broad shoulders before tapering to his trim waist. Classic blue jeans ended at camel-colored work boots. His hair was clipped short, browner than she remembered, but the North didn’t get a whole lot of winter sun. His skin had a healthy look that made the furrow of worry seem out of place, but his eyes…

  His eyes were the same soft shade of sky that melted her heart back in the day. Gorgeous eyes, she thought before clamping a lid on memory lane. His gaze proved harder than she remembered. Sadder.

  Life could do a number on people. She knew that. Even when you thought you were chasing the right dream…

  She put away that train of thought promptly. She’d learned a lot by being cheated out of the life she thought she’d have and the job she knew she’d earned. But falling in love with a married man…

  With political connections…

  That went beyond dumb. But only once does a person get a chance to make such a colossal mistake. Luckily she’d smartened up, but caution and mistrust mingled as if they were her two new middle names.

  Cam crossed into the formal dining room. “This crown molding is exquisite. You’ve got yourself a classic Queen Anne in all her glory.”

  “Meaning?”

  “It’s more elaborate than a simple Victorian,” he explained. He swept a hand across the low, wooden panels framing the room and his expression took on a reverent cast. “The mahogany wainscoting. The gingerbread-trimmed second story. The wraparound porch. The turret on the north front corner.”

  “I love the turret.” Meredith moved to the left and bent low. “The minute we saw this, we knew it would be perfect.”

  “Your husband and you?”

  She grimaced at something resembling mice droppings. Closer inspection proved her right. “Mom, Grandma and me. I’m not married.”

  She tossed the personal info into the conversation easily because he was married, so her single state was immaterial. And that was good.

  “Ah.” He snapped his tape measure open, measured quickly, then closed it as he continued through to the expansive kitchen. “Do you hear the girls?”

  “No.”

  He made a U-turn for the stairs. “Nine years of fatherhood has taught me that silence is rarely golden.”

  “Oops.”

  “Soph! Rachel! Where are you?”

  He took the steps at a quick clip, then called their names again on the top landing.

  Silence answered him. He turned toward Meredith. “Attic?”

  “This way.” She started toward the equally ornate attic staircase at the end of the hall, but a giggle from the turret room halted their progress.

  “Yes, m’lady?” Rachel’s little voice had taken on a seven-year-old’s rendition of peasant Scotland.

  “I need proper biscuits, Higgins. These are quite stale.” Sophie’s tone embraced a more haughty British aristocracy.

  “But cook just made them,” Rachel protested, indignant.

  “Cook’s a fool.”

  “And the butter is fresh, mum.”

  Cam and Meredith stepped in as Sophie pirouetted, backlit by the bank of windows lining the rounded wall of the turret room. The higher angle of the March sun glared with little remorse through smoggy windows, lighting streams of dancing dust motes, but the sight of two little girls made Meredith remember another little girl playing dress-up. Pretending to be fancy and special. Above reproach.

  That was a long time ago. When she was Daddy’s little girl. Before the world saw Neal Brennan’s true colors. And before she made the very same mistakes she’d abhorred in him.

  “Daddy, do you see this?” Rachel spun about, arms out, a little girl twirl of gladness. “I just love it so much!”

  “It’s beautiful, Rach.” Cam moved forward, palmed her head and leaned down. “And it’s a perfect space for dancing.”

  “Kitchen help isn’t allowed to dance,” announced Sophie. She glided across the floor as if extending a dress out to the side, then curtsied toward her father. “Perhaps on her day off.”

  “Since you have an orthodontist appointment in twenty minutes, her dancing debut must wait anyway. Come on, ladies.”

  The girls didn’t argue, but Sophie sent a wistful look back toward the light-filled, dusty turret. “It’s like a princess dream room, Daddy.”

  “You don’t like princesses, Soph.”

  Sophie made a face her father didn’t see.

  But Meredith saw it, and wondered why a little girl would pretend not to like princesses.

  Not her business, she decided as she followed them down the stairs. Cam was obviously in as big a hurry to leave as she was to have him gone. He’d go, give her an estimate she’d politely decline, then go back to his wife and perfect family while she hunted up another remodeler to do the work.

  He reached the side porch door and turned. “I’ll get back to you with a rough idea. Best I can do with my time frame today.”

  Meredith nodded, playing along. “Of course. Thanks, Cam.”

  He herded the girls across the porch. At the outer porch door, Rachel slipped from his grip and raced back to Meredith, surprising her with a hug that felt delightful. “Thank you for letting us play in your pretty house. I love it,” she whispered, head back, her gaze trained
upward.

  “I’m so glad, honey. Come again, okay?”

  “I’d like that.”

  “Rach. Gotta go,” Cam said.

  “I know, I’m coming. Bye, Miss…”

  “Meredith.”

  “Brennan,” Cam corrected. “Her name is Miss Brennan.”

  “They can call me Meredith, Cam. It’s all right.”

  “It’s not, but thanks. I’ll be in touch.” He opened the side door, let the girls precede him and then shut it quietly without so much as a backward glance.

  Not that she wanted him to glance back. She hadn’t wanted him to come around in the first place—that was all Matt’s doing—and seeing Cam’s reluctance made her realize gut instincts were best followed. His and hers.

  Chapter Two

  Fifty-two hundred dollars.

  Cam added the hard knot of financial anxiety alongside five years of guilt and figured he deserved both. If he’d been more careful, more devoted, a better husband, he might still have a wife and the girls would have a mother.

  Somewhere along the way of being father and provider, he’d forgotten to treat life’s blessings with the care they deserved. That carelessness cost his wife her life, made him a single parent, and left his girls with no mother to guide them or explain things to them.

  The thought of more than five thousand dollars he didn’t have raised hairs along the back of his neck, but he signed the contract for Sophie’s braces and wished he could pray help into reality.

  God helps those who help themselves.

  His mother’s tart voice rankled. He ignored it and counted his blessings. He loved his teaching job, the chance to show high school kids usable trades. Woodworking. Plastering. Plumbing. Basic electricity. He taught valuable, lasting skills to kids who might never make it into a four-year college but could do well in a trade-school environment. And to kids who simply wanted to learn how to take care of themselves with skilled hands.

  He had a home. It needed work, but it was clean and bright, a safe and open environment for the girls.

  And he had his girls, precious gifts from God, the two lights in an otherwise shadowed life.

  Cam slipped the dental estimate into his jacket pocket, waited while the girls adjusted their seat belts in the backseat, and racked his brain.

  The dental office offered a payment plan.

  Cam hated payment plans.

  He pulled into his mother’s driveway as the girls started squabbling. His right brain knew they were tired and hungry and needed to run off built-up energy. Sitting in a dental office for nearly ninety minutes hadn’t added to Rachel’s humor or Sophie’s patience.

  His left brain didn’t give a hoot and wanted peace and quiet.

  “Stop. Now.” He got out of the car and hoisted a small white bag. “I’m dropping off Grandma’s medicine, then we’re going home. Stay in the car. Got it?”

  Sophie gave him a “whatever” look.

  Rachel smiled sweetly. “Yes, Daddy.”

  Cam refused to sigh as he took his mother’s back steps two at a time. Sophie might make her feelings known, but she’d most likely be sitting there with her belt on, reading a book or daydreaming when he got back.

  Rachel?

  She pretended cooperation, a winning smile under her mop-of-innocence curls, but she acquiesced in name only. Most likely she’d be chasing his mother’s cat into the barn when he returned.

  Fifty-two hundred dollars.

  He shook his head as if clearing his brain, knocked, then walked in. “Mom? I’ve got your medicine.”

  “I’m in here.”

  Cam moved toward the querulous voice, fighting useless annoyance. His mother’s perpetual drama had become a way of life a long time ago. “Hey, Mom.” He swept the dark room a look. “Don’t you want a light on?”

  “Light hurts my eyes.”

  “Another headache?”

  “Always.”

  He swallowed words that matched the irritation, not an easy task. “Did you take something for it?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  Oh, she remembered all right. They’d gone through a battery of tests last year as her memory seemed to fade. The diagnosis: old and ornery.

  The prognosis: she had the Murray-family strong heart from her mother’s side and might live to be a hundred.

  Cam wasn’t sure what to make of that, but she was his mother and with his sister and brother both out of state, Cam needed to be available. Although not nearly as much as she’d like, which was why he was getting the “poor me” act now.

  He’d promised to swing by earlier. Meredith’s estimate had messed up his time frame, but stopping by the old Senator’s Mansion then meant he didn’t have to travel to the other side of town now, at the end of a long day with two tired, hungry girls. Would Evelyn Calhoun understand that?

  No.

  “Can I get you something? Have you eaten?”

  “I’m not hungry.” She patted his arm with a weak hand and sighed. “Just tired. And I worried so when you didn’t come like you said, imagining all kinds of things.”

  “I left you a message.”

  “Did you?” She thinned her gaze, looking up. “I must not have heard the phone.”

  Another trick he wasn’t buying. She had caller ID on the phone and through her TV. If she didn’t want to talk to the caller, she didn’t pick up the phone. Which was fine until she used it on him to make him feel guilty for not being there long enough. Often enough.

  “How did Sophia’s dentist appointment go? Everything fine?”

  “Braces. Pricey. About what you’d expect.”

  “I expect people are spending way too much money trying to look prettier, younger and thinner these days.” Her words pitched stronger in argument. Surprise, surprise. “The way young girls slather on makeup and wear high heels. It’s not right. None of it.” Her voice accelerated as she climbed on an old but favorite soapbox. “Sophie’s teeth are fine. They do the job, don’t they?”

  The girls raced in at that moment, and Cam couldn’t be angry that they’d disobeyed his directive to stay in the car. It was getting dark and cold and his simple drop-off had turned into an interrogation. Or lamentation. Either label equated to something long and somewhat depressing.

  “Hey, girls. I’m just saying goodbye to Grandma.”

  “Hi, Grandma.”

  “Hi, Gram!”

  Evelyn laid an exaggerated hand against her forehead. “Girls, girls. So loud.”

  “I’ll take them home. Get them fed. That will quiet them down. Kind of like feeding time at the zoo.” Cam sent a teasing grin to the girls and they lit up in return.

  “They’ve had no supper?”

  Accusation laced Evelyn’s words and Cam counted to ten—no wait, five. He wouldn’t be sticking around long enough to make it to ten. “Girls. Let’s go.”

  “Dad, did you tell Grandma about the pretty lady’s house?”

  “No.”

  “What lady?” His mother’s voice scaled up.

  Great.

  “Meredith.” Rachel announced the name like they were new best friends.

  “Rachel.” Cam crossed his arms and met her gaze, unblinking.

  “She said I could call her that,” the little blonde insisted.

  Innocence painted her features, but Cam recognized the belligerent heart behind the facade. “And what did I tell you?”

  Rachel sighed, overdone. “To call her Miss Brennan.”

  “You were with Meredith Brennan?”

  “Doing an estimate. Yes.”

  “Instead of bringing my pills?”

  He fully intended to wring Rachel’s neck for plunging him into the heart of a discussion he’d be okay wi
th having…never. “She needed an estimate and I was on that side of town.”

  “Why did she call you?” Evelyn emphasized the pronoun in a way that suggested any old woodworker would do.

  Because I’m the best around, was what he longed to say, but his mother wouldn’t get that. Evelyn Calhoun went beyond frugal and bordered on neurotic when it came to spending money. That someone would pay higher costs for Cam’s expertise didn’t sit right with her. But she sat more upright hearing Meredith’s name, and the self-righteous jut of her chin didn’t bode well for anyone.

  “Are you seeing her?”

  “What? No. It’s a job, Mom.”

  “Why you? Why now? She’s been back for months.”

  Cam grasped each little girl’s hand in one of his own, determined to bring the conversation to an end. “Gotta get these guys home. Call if you need anything.”

  She rose, following them out, looking considerably stronger than she’d implied moments before. “We’ve been down this road before, Cameron. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

  She’d used that quote all his life. Among others, most of them as negative and ominous as the one she’d just spewed. And while Cam read the common sense in the message, he refused to be a doom-and-gloom person, and that set them at odds more often than not.

  “You’d take a chance like that again, Cameron? After what she did to you?”

  He wouldn’t spar where the girls could hear. It was difficult enough to minimize his mother’s negative effect on them and still be a helpful son, a tightrope he walked daily.

  You hate it, his inner self scoffed. Stand your ground, have your say and be done with it. Mark and Julia have no problem doing just that.

  That was part of the problem. His siblings had distance on their side. Cam lived a few miles away on a twelve-acre parcel he’d bought a couple of years back. Room for the girls to run. Climb. Ride. Practice their sports.

  Still, he wouldn’t argue with his mother in front of impressionable children. Reaching the door, they raced to the car. Sophie edged Rachel by using a well-placed shoulder, a great move in soccer. Not so much on little sisters at the end of a long day.

  Rachel’s cries split the night. Cam followed them, wondering which fire to douse first. His mother’s intrinsic negativity, his daughter’s screams of indignation, Sophie’s heavy-handedness or…