She explained to them about Diane, how small she’d be and how she might chew on them before she was old enough to understand who they were. “But one day her little brain will click into gear and she’ll figure out that you have feelings and that you love her.”
Missis gave a knowing bark. As she warned the stuffed dog not to wake their guest, Casey felt a draft from the doorway.
Glancing up, she peered through a wing of unbrushed hair. Jack, a black kimono-style robe belted over pajama bottoms, stood watching her with a bemused expression. Maybe he thought she’d gone nuts, but at least he wasn’t scowling.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she said.
He regarded the circle of dogs. “I don’t recall meeting these guys before.”
“My parents saved them for me,” Casey explained.
“They saved your toys?” He seemed to find the idea puzzling.
“I guess they were hoping someday the grandchildren would play with them. Or maybe having them around reminded Mom of when I was small.” Impulsively, she added, “She wanted more kids but she couldn’t have them. I wish she’d lived long enough to meet Diane.”
“I don’t even remember having toys, although I must have,” he said. “We moved a lot, sometimes without warning. Stuff got left behind.”
“You don’t remember any of them?” Casey couldn’t imagine it.
He thought for a moment. “Some books, I guess. I don’t know what happened to them.” As he studied the array of stuffed animals, she thought she saw regret flicker in his eyes. Then he crossed his arms and shifted his attention to the window, where ribbons tied back the yellow-dotted white curtains. “You ought to get opaque shades. Anyone could see inside.”
“Nobody around here…” She stopped, remembering the prowler. “I’m not used to thinking that way.”
“It’s my job to think that way.” He cast one more glance at the stuffed animals with a veiled longing that touched Casey more deeply than words.
He’d lost so much along the way to becoming a man. He always shrugged it off when she asked about the past, as if it couldn’t touch him, but she knew it affected him in countless ways.
“I wish you’d tell me more,” she said.
“About what?”
“Your parents. Your life in foster homes. How can I understand if you won’t share it with me?”
He edged away. “Sorry to disturb you. I came in because I heard someone talking.”
“Just me and the pooches.” Casey watched him go with a sense of loss. For an instant, she’d hoped he might open up, but she could see it was useless.
Nostalgically, she tucked the dogs back into the chest. She’d always taken it for granted that parents saved their children’s favorite toys. How did it feel to be stripped of those memories?
Jack might as well have come from a distant planet. For a long stretch, she’d wished he would agree to visit Tennessee with her and that it would help their worlds to blend. But he’d never found the time. And now that he’d come, it was too late.
She couldn’t reach him. Even the prospect of becoming parents wasn’t going to bridge the gap between them.
Reluctantly, she made her way back to bed.
* * *
SITTING ALONE in the kitchen while Casey dressed for church, Jack ate toast and coffee and fought down a sense of unease. The view of seemingly endless trees, with the nearest cabin barely visible and no other buildings in sight, disturbed him with its emptiness.
One of his foster families had taken him and their other charges to a regional park on a few occasions, but the place had been filled with visitors. Here, he found the vast amount of space almost threatening. It reminded him of a recurring dream in which he searched through a devastated landscape for a woman in a white dress, or perhaps it was a nightgown.
Long ago, the woman must have been his mother. During the past year, he’d known it was Casey even though he couldn’t see her face.
He tried to force himself to relax. After such a dysfunctional childhood, Jack knew his gut reactions weren’t a reliable warning of real danger. Besides, he didn’t have to search for Casey. He could hear her moving around in the bathroom.
Through the window came the sounds of birds twittering and leaves rustling in the breeze. Seeking a positive association, he decided the sounds reminded him of a book about pioneers he used to enjoy as a kid.
Come to think of it, he had many happy memories of stories. In some ways, he had taken his toys with him. All he’d had to do was venture into any library and he could visit them all over again.
Storybook figures obviously meant a lot to Casey, too. Last night, she’d looked adorable, sitting on the carpet talking earnestly to her toys as if she were still a child herself. He’d overheard quite a bit before she noticed him.
One day her little brain will click into gear. Until Casey said that, he hadn’t thought about Diane as anything beyond a helpless infant. It was disconcerting to consider the bulge inside his wife as a person who would someday have ideas and relationships of her own.
He imagined a tot with tangled brown hair and blue eyes like her mother’s, sitting on that same carpet solemnly communing with the Dalmatians. His daughter.
Yearning twisted through Jack. He’d always felt protective toward children and moved by their instinctive trust. Once, as a police officer, he’d unstrapped a baby from a car seat after a crash and barely managed to carry her to safety before the car caught fire. He would never forget the delicate feel of the girl’s arms clasping his neck as he delivered her to her mother.
But he’d had no desire to stick around beyond that moment of connection. For heaven’s sake, he was too impatient and moody to live with a little girl. He’d probably lose his temper and yell the way his father used to. The image of tears spilling down a child’s face made his coffee taste bitter.
From the living room, Casey popped into the doorway. She’d tamed her hair and donned a pink smock dress with an embroidered yoke. “You’re welcome to come to church with me.”
“No, thanks.” He never set foot in one except to attend a wedding or a funeral, and not many of those. He and Casey had tied the knot at a chapel in a Las Vegas hotel, with her parents, his partner Mike and Mike’s then-wife in attendance. “Besides, I have to leave by noon to make my flight.”
Although he’d secured a midafternoon reservation out of Nashville, he had to allow for the hour and a half drive, plus returning the rental car and clearing security. Thanks to the two-hour time difference, that would put him in L.A. by dinner.
“I’m sorry I can’t stick around to see you off but I’m teaching Sunday school,” she said.
Could things get any cozier? Stuffed animals, baby showers and Sunday school. Suddenly Jack felt suffocated. At work tomorrow, he looked forward to taking command of the situation instead of gasping like a fish out of water.
“What?” his wife demanded.
“I’m sorry?”
“Your nose wrinkled as if something smelled bad,” she challenged.
“Do you always have to try to read my mind?”
“I hope you weren’t disapproving of my teaching Sunday school. Maybe you should join the class,” Casey returned. “We learn valuable lessons from the Bible.”
“I know a valuable lesson. Mind thy own business.” He shook his head apologetically. “I don’t mean that. Casey, I think it’s great that you teach Bible school, okay?”
She nodded. “I’m sorry. I should