In defiance of the rules, she was about to march down the ramp and look into the plane herself when she heard a shriek and then a child’s howling protests.
Behind Gayle, a small cluster of people had formed under a large sign that read Oklahoma City, the new Agenda for Business, next to a stunning blowup of a fire-red Oklahoma sunset. But there was nothing sunny about their faces as they turned anxious expressions toward the sound of the shrieking child.
The suspended alertness of the group fractured as they all heard the young child plainly yelling, “Help! Help me!”
As one, everyone rushed forward, expressions horrified. Gayle was overcome by a sinking feeling. Meggie was acting out again. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw security officers jogging down the concourse.
A man in a straw cowboy hat standing next to her muttered, “What the hell?”
“I think it’s my grandchild.”
Sure enough, around the corner came a flight attendant, tugging a screaming Meggie by the hand. Meggie, clutching her beloved stuffed companion, Mr. Bear, and wielding a pink Pokémon backpack at the flight attendant’s arm, dug in her heels and stopped their progress.
Meggie was incredibly strong for such a thin child. Gayle had to smile, though she was mortified that Meggie was making such a scene. The child did have a will of her own. Her little face was so red with exertion that it made her blond hair look almost white. Like the unfortunate flight attendant, Gayle herself had often been jerked to a halt when Meggie didn’t want to cooperate. There was no reasoning with a three-year-old in a ten-year-old’s body. The flight attendant bent forward at the waist, obviously trying to reason with the struggling child.
“Meggie!” Gayle called, “Meggie! It’s Nonnie!” Gayle put on a brave smile and waved frantically, trying to get the child to calm down and see that everything was okay. Nonnie was here.
The flight attendant turned. “Are you Mrs. Solomon?”
“Yes!”
Gayle was relieved when she was waved down the ramp. “Meggie, it’s okay, honey.” She tried to speak calmly above Meggie’s screaming as she took hold of the combative child. “Nonnie’s here.”
“I going back to Cal-forna!” Meggie screamed while trying to tug her hand out of the attendant’s grip and twisting her thin body away from Gayle, back toward the plane.
“She refused to get off the plane.” The woman had to holler to be heard above Meggie’s crying.
“I…want…my…mom-meeee!” Meggie wailed.
“Meggie, listen!” Gayle dropped to one knee and bracketed her hands on the child’s flushed, tear-streaked cheeks. “Remember Nonnie?” Gayle brushed back Meggie’s thick blond curls and tried to look into her eyes, but they were squeezed shut. “And Daddy? Daddy wants to see you. Remember? And Brutus. Brutus wants to see you. Remember Brutus?”
Gayle hated to use her poor little schnauzer as bait, but what choice did she have? It always worked. Instantly, Meggie’s body relaxed and her eyes opened wide.
“Bootus?” she said in quiet awe.
“Yes. Remember Brutus?” Gayle encouraged.
“Bootus?” Meggie repeated softly. She hiccuped innocently, then graced the hapless attendant with an angelic smile. The poor woman cautiously released Meggie’s hand, then wilted as if she wanted to slide down the wall of the tunnel to her backside. “You go with your grandma now,” she sighed, “okay, Meggie?”
“My nonnie,” Meggie corrected with an evil glare.
“Yes. Your nonnie. We’ll have fun the next time you fly with us.” The look on the flight attendant’s face said, Which I hope is never.
In a singsong voice, Meggie started chanting, “Boo-tus. Boo-tus. I gonna see Bootus.”
Gayle stood up and took Meggie’s free hand. “They did tell you that my granddaughter is mentally challenged, didn’t they?”
The attendant nodded, looking sheepish but exhausted. “Yes. Her mom gave us plenty of instructions. But they didn’t mention the t-e-m-p-e-r. I let her eat several doughnuts. She refused to touch any healthy snacks and it was a long flight. It was the only way to get some orange juice down her.”
Gayle smiled wanly and patted the woman’s arm. Sugar certainly didn’t help Meggie’s moods. “It’s okay. I’ll feed her some protein on the way home. She loves McDonald’s.”
With that, Meggie changed her chant to “IckDonald’s! IckDonald’s! I gonna go to IckDonald’s!” as she tugged on Gayle’s hand, dragging her petite grandmother down the exit ramp.
“Thank you!” Gayle called over her shoulder.
“I’m sorry she got upset,” the flight attendant called after them. “I did get her to take a two-hour nap during the flight.”
Great, Gayle thought, that means now she won’t fall asleep until after midnight. Not an auspicious beginning on her first night in her daddy’s house.
CHAPTER TWO
GAYLE SOLOMON WAS USED to answering distress calls from her youngest son. And since his pleas for help invariably involved her darling Meggie, she felt she had to heed them. She wanted to heed them.
She was used to coming into Sam’s house and making herself right at home—if one could make oneself at home in such a stark, cold atmosphere. And why her son favored so much black was an inconsistent mystery. Couldn’t the man at least get some green plants?
In his work Sam favored color, lots of it. Persian blue and misty mauve and hot tangerine. He restored Victorian houses in lavish colors, calling them “painted ladies.” The interiors he designed always felt rich, cozy and golden. But in his own home it was unrelenting black. Black, black and more black. Black leather couches. Black granite kitchen counters. Even a black shower curtain upstairs. Sam’s home looked as stripped and clinical as a dentist’s office.
Gayle sighed. What her son needed was a wife. Sometimes she wondered if Sam would ever really get his act together. He worked too much, for one thing. Tonight he looked exceptionally frazzled, exceptionally tired.
She watched him as he trudged down the open stairs into the kitchen, one loose-hipped step at a time, removing his tie.
Sam was an undeniably handsome man. Beautiful, in fact. Although that was a word she would never use aloud to describe any of her very masculine sons. The Solomon Sons. All gorgeous, but Sam had indeed been the most beautiful of all her children except, of course, for— She forced herself to smile up at Sam, focusing her love and attention on him.
Of all her sons, Sam was the most like her late husband, Edward, which had made the constant father and son friction all the more troubling and confusing. She watched as he ran his long fingers through his hair, a habit from childhood that, for Sam, could signal anything from frustration to shyness to happy excitement. The full head of curly white-blond hair from his childhood had deepened to a burnished gold with rich taupe undertones. He wore his hair in a casual lionlike mane, curling behind his ears, touching his collar, stubbornly raked straight back from his brow and temples, an occasional lock falling forward.
At thirty-one, he already had telltale sprigs of gray lacing his sideburns, though his body was still athletically honed and his face had only grown more handsome as he reached full manhood. His forehead was broad, his nose straight, his jaw square, and his deep-set dark blue eyes were as compelling as a midnight sky.
“She’s finally asleep.” He slumped when he got to the last step.
“Have you eaten?” Gayle asked.
“Only the finger food we served to the investors.”
“I’ll make you a sandwich,”