“Wait!” Kate cried. “Susie and Andy eat it!”
Hannah jerked her focus away from those mocking eyes and back to Kate. “Sissy’s children?” she asked.
Kate nodded. “Whenever they’re here they always eat it with Uncle Tuffy. Every morning and then again before bed. I try to get them to put fruit on it, but—”
“That’s wonderful!” Hannah interrupted. She was desperate and could care less if the kids put crushed candy bars on it, just as long as they could eat a bowl of it in front of Mr. Pollard without gagging.
Whew. Close call with disaster, thought Hannah as she slumped against the counter. But just to be on the safe side, she had better ask a few follow-up questions.
“Is there anything else I should know? Any other information that might not be entirely correct?” she asked. “Sissy is a stay-at-home mother, right?”
“Yup,” said Danny, his eyes twinkling. “In fact she never stops talking about it.”
Hannah ignored the twinkling and asked, “And she has a traditional husband?”
Danny seemed to find this even more amusing. “Traditional is the perfect word for Sissy’s husband Chuck.”
So far, so good, thought Hannah. “When am I going to meet them?” she asked.
Danny nodded toward the windows. “Any second now.”
Hannah looked out the window. Two children, a boy and a girl, were dashing across the yard, while a young woman carrying a huge tote bag was just coming down the alley behind the Walker house. She was followed by a young man who looked enough like Elvis to be the ghost of the King of Rock and Roll. He was talking urgently and gesturing a little wildly with his hands as he walked but the woman didn’t bother to turn around. When she came through the gate to the backyard, she locked it behind her, leaving the Elvis look-alike on the other side, still pleading his case.
The children clattered up the steps and across the back porch. The screen door slammed against the wall as they tumbled into the kitchen. They were both towheaded and as golden-brown as their uncle.
“Children!” Kate exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”
“Mommy left Daddy again,” the little girl said as if she’d announced nothing more important than what she’d just watched on television. Then, barely missing a beat, she asked, “Can we have some cereal?”
4
“MA DON’T YOU DARE give them any of that sugary junk. They’ve already had dinner,” said the young woman who’d slammed in the back door with just as much force as her children.
“Sissy,” Kate said, her hands on her hips, “what are you thinking?”
Sissy looked taken aback. “What? All of a sudden I’m not welcome in my own parents’ house?”
“Sissy, this is Hannah Ross,” Kate said pointedly. “From Granny’s Grains.”
It took a few moments for it to register on Sissy’s face. When she finally got it, her hand went to her mouth much the same as Kate’s had earlier. “Oh my gosh! I forgot all about Uncle Tuffy’s contest. I guess I picked a lousy time to leave Chuck again, huh?”
Again? The word leapt out at Hannah and said boo! How could this be happening? Sissy and Chuck had looked perfect on paper. They’d been so absolutely—right. Now it looked like they were just another thing that was absolutely wrong.
“I think you better sit down, professor,” Danny said.
Hannah automatically sat down on the chair Danny had pulled out for her. She was too dazed to even bother being irritated when Danny sat right down next to her.
“Does this happen often?” she asked him.
“So often the kids keep a second wardrobe upstairs in Sissy’s old room. ’Course old room isn’t really the correct term. The bed hardly ever has a chance to get cold before Sissy shows up at the back gate again in yet another skirmish in the employment wars.”
“Employment wars?”
“Remember you asked if Sissy’s husband was traditional?”
Hannah nodded.
“Chuck is so traditional that he won’t hear of Sissy working. While Sissy, who can cook up a storm, is on a constant crusade to transform the kitchen of the Belway family tavern. Make it like some bistro in Paris she read about. So every time Sissy sneaks something onto the menu, Chuck sneaks it back off again. And Sissy comes home.”
Hannah leaned her elbows on the table and shoved her hands into her hair. “How long does she stay?”
Danny shrugged. “Varies. Anywhere from two days to two months.”
Her head jerked up. “Two months!” The situation had gone from bad to worse with just those two words. If Sissy and Chuck weren’t back together before Pollard and the rest of the crew showed up, Hannah was going to have a lot more to worry about than a taunting blue-eyed devil and a bunch of plants you could take out for a burger.
“We’re not exactly what you planned on, are we, professor?” Danny asked softly.
Oh, fine. Danny Walker had picked a great time to talk nicely to her. And wasn’t his smile just a little sweet, as well? The back of her throat started to ache, just like it always had when she was a little girl, forcing back tears. She’d be damned if she was going to cry in front of Danny Walker. She sat up straighter. “A few minor glitches,” she said with a shrug. “Nothing I can’t handle,” she added nonchalantly, then turned to look out the window just in time to see Chuck finish climbing the fence.
“Time to play the helpful uncle,” Danny said as he stood up. “Hey kids, I’ve got to run something over to the shop. Want to ride in the truck?”
The kids immediately lost interest in cereal. “Can we, Mom?” Susie asked.
“Go ahead,” Sissy answered, then mouthed a thank you to her brother over the children’s heads.
Danny shepherded the two children out of the kitchen just as Chuck appeared at the screen door and started rattling the knob.
“Come on, honeybunch, unlock the door,” Chuck cooed, his face pressed against the screen.
“Don’t you honeybunch me, Chuckie Belway.”
“You can’t call it quits over a couple of artichokes. Come on, sugar, admit it was a dumb idea, anyway.”
“Dumb idea!” Sissy put her hands on her hips and stalked over to the door where her husband was clinging to the screen like a moth seeking a lightbulb. “Restaurants everywhere are putting gourmet pizzas on their menus. And if you hadn’t been so all fired stubborn about tasting it you would have seen why.”
“Well, this isn’t everywhere. Most of Timber Bay has probably never even tasted an artichoke. They sure as hell don’t want one on their pizza.”
“You’re impossible, Chuckie Belway,” Sissy yelled before she slammed the kitchen door in her husband’s face. Her bottom lip quivered as she turned to Kate. “Ma, I—I’m sorry if I’m messing things up for Uncle Tuffy, but I—I just can’t stay married to a man who doesn’t appreciate and nur—nurture my—my creativity.” She sniffed and dashed at a tear slipping down her cheek. “H—How can you build a life with a man who won’t even consider artichokes? I deserve artichokes, Ma.”
“Of course you do, dear,” Kate said as she took Sissy into her arms to console her.
Hannah was having a hard time picturing this tender scene on a cereal box. A Moving Back in With Mother edition? She was pretty sure Norman Rockwell never put that one on a magazine cover. She groaned and