A Family to Cherish

“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.