All she could do was stare at him.
“You came with little luggage, and the clothes you have are obviously new. You are in hiding, Miss Stone. If that is indeed your name.” The old man shrugged, then returned to his task. “Are you running from the law?”
Her laugh was startled. “No.”
“Then it is of no concern of mine why you are here.” He moved on to the next bush, squinting at a bud, from which he removed a layer of aphids. “Although you may find me a good listener…?”
She hesitated, then said, “It’s nothing, really. I just suddenly realized I desperately needed to take some time for myself. To relax. To perhaps think through a few things.”
“Ah. One of those, what do they call them? Workaholics?”
“I suppose, yes.”
He tilted his head, resembling a flower himself in the silly hat. “Too busy to take time to smell the roses?”
She laughed again, then, hugging herself, made her way over to a small wooden shed tucked away in one corner, the stupid shoes clumping on the brick path. “Except,” she tossed over her shoulder, “I find I really don’t know how to relax. I’ve already gone through two novels, just since yesterday.” Like a small child, she peered inside the darkened shed which smelled of damp wood and earth and other vague, gardeny things. “I do need the time away, but—”
“What you need is a change, then. Not a rest.”
She turned then, one hand on the door frame. “Yes. Yes, I suppose that’s it.” On a sigh, she added, “I find idleness doesn’t suit me very much.”
The old man waved his clippers at her in agreement, and she chuckled. Then her gaze lit on the bicycle, leaning against the shed’s back wall. “Oh! Does the bicycle work?” she called out to him, already halfway inside.
“It was my daughter’s,” Mr. Liebowicz said, closing in on her. “It’s been years since anyone’s ridden it. Here—” He motioned for her to bring it out. “Let’s have a look.”
So she did, divesting the poor thing of its cobweb shroud. The tires were flat, but otherwise it looked in decent condition. “Would you mind if I borrowed it while I was here? After I got it fixed up, of course.”
“No, not at all. There’s a bicycle shop not six blocks away, in town, that can fix those tires for you. I’ll be happy to pay for getting it in shape—”
“Nonsense. If I’m going to use it, the least I can do is foot the repair bill.”
“Well, then—take it, with my blessings. The countryside is beautiful, this time of year. And a half hour in that direction—” he pointed west “—takes you to a stretch of woods and farmland that may remind you of home.”
She blinked at him, questions fluttering like moths in her brain.
“Your accent may be English, my dear,” Mr. Liebowicz said with a smile, “but your features are pure central Europe.”
After a moment, she hugged the dear old man, clearly startling him, then knelt by the bike, checking the chain. “Perhaps a few nice, long bike rides will clear out the old brain, you know?”
Mr. Liebowicz stroked the dulled silver handlebars, then nodded. “Perhaps so, my dear. Perhaps so.”
Chapter 3
“Mrs. Hadley—please.” Steve did some fancy shuffling through several half-dressed kids and a dog in order to plant himself in front of the bulldozer of a woman headed for his front door. “If you could just stay until—”
“Mister Koleski.” A pair of frigid blue eyes smacked into his. “I only took this job because the agency said you were desperate, so you knew from the beginning I was only here on a trial basis. Well, the trial’s over!” A pudgy hand swept him out of the way as the woman tromped through the old farmhouse’s uncarpeted living room, tugging her pale blue blouse down over hips that conjured up images of large, scary beasts.
Steve’s peripheral vision caught the six-year-old standing by the doorway, his eyes wide with confusion and fear. “For crying out loud, Mrs. Hadley—it wasn’t like Dylan meant to do it!”
The housekeeper spun around. “No six-year-old should still be wettin’ himself, Mr. Koleski!”
Dylan ran from the room, sobbing; frustration flared into a fury. Steve felt no compunction about turning on the woman standing in front of him with her chin jutted out to Wisconsin. Thank God Mac was out feeding the chickens. The fourteen-year-old was fiercely protective of his younger siblings, and he tended to fly off the handle if he even suspected that someone was hurting one of them. At the moment, Steve understood all too well how the teenager felt. “It’s only been eight months. And Dylan’s only six, in case you missed it. Six. He can’t help it if he still has nightmares.”
Now he noticed the twins, both still in their nightgowns, Bree with rollers in her short hair, sidling out to see what all the commotion was about. Mrs. Hadley turned again to leave; Steve caught her by the arm. “Just wait one blessed minute, all right?” he said in a low voice, then turned to the girls. “Guys, I know you hate to do this, but I really, really need you to get Dylan cleaned up and dressed this morning.”
Courtney, her long, dark hair a tangled mass around her slender face, groaned first. But Steve cut off her protest with a pointed glare he’d learned from his mother, and the two of them trudged dejectedly down the hall, calling for their little brother, while George—the brown-and-white half hound, half whatever mutt that had come with the house—trotted along happily beside them.
He turned back to Mrs. Hadley. “If you leave me in the lurch like this,” he said softly, “don’t expect me to give you any recommendations.”
Mrs. Hadley’s jaw dropped, closed, then flew open again. “I did my job, Mr. Koleski, you know darn well I did! You’re spoiling these kids, is what. Just because they went through a rough patch don’t mean they don’t need discipline and limits! They got you so tied up around their little fingers, it’s a wonder they haven’t set the place on fire!”
Her word choice couldn’t have been more deliberately cruel. Steve jerked one hand up to halt the tirade, then jumped slightly when he felt a tug on his jeans leg. Without even looking, he swept three-year-old Rosie and her lovey—the heart-patterned, and very ratty, crib quilt she always carried around with her—up onto his hip, swallowing hard when she tucked her head into his collarbone and poked her thumb in her mouth, conveying a trust both implicit and explicit that this big man would protect her almost as much as her lovey did.
A trust Steve took extremely seriously.
Bug-eyed and now dressed in nearly identical bell-bottomed jeans and scoop-necked tees, the twins, with a cleaned and dressed Dylan in tow, crept back into the living room, Bree with her arms locked around her ribs, Courtney twisting a lock of hair around her finger. Three sets of dark brown eyes all fixed on the scene, three already mangled hearts subjected to yet more stress.
“And that one’s far too big to be sucking her thumb, too,” the dour-faced woman in front of him said, and Steve lost it. Calmly, but he lost it.
“Mrs. Hadley?” he asked, smoothing a tangle of dark brown hair away from the baby’s face as she nestled more closely against him.
“What?”
“Why on earth do you hire out to care for children when you obviously dislike them so much?”
Thin lips pressed together until they nearly disappeared. Then the woman whirled around, banging back the screen door on her way out. Everybody including the dog wandered out onto the porch to watch her leave, which she did in a spectacular fashion, tromping down the drive