Was this guy from the eighteen hundreds or something?Express your concerns.
Noah's voice was tight as he answered. "These kids are trespassing on my property. Are you telling me you're not going to do anything about it?"
The deputy was no help. Noah hung up rather than listen to his excuses. Yes, Noah knew that the kids would be gone in the twenty minutes it took someone to drive out here. No, he didn't care if his neighbor got offended when a deputy showed up on their doorstep.
He'd equipped his house with a doorbell camera. It helped his personal assistant, Aiden, manage deliveries. Aiden worked offsite from his home in Kansas, but Noah never wanted for groceries or clothes or anything he needed.
Technology meant he never had to interact with another human being. Except for Aiden, who worked for him, and Noah’s mom.
The doorbell camera would have the proof Noah needed to show that the kids were trespassing and had done it repeatedly.
Express your concerns. Ha. He was going to have Aiden chew out the kids' parents.
Just thinking about it filled him with satisfaction. He didn't know if the kids knew he was blind or would've pranked anybody. It didn't matter.
Maybe it made Noah a bad neighbor, but there was a reason he'd moved onto this property and kept to himself. His Realtor had told him the place next door was in terrible shape and that the land wasn't big enough to entice one of the bigger ranchers in the area to buy it up.
He'd had five years of peace and quiet. Five years of not having to remember what it felt like to interact with other humans.
He wanted it back.
Why hadn'tanyone told her that being a mom would be this disgusting?
Jilly Tatum fished the blue homework folder out of her ten-year-old foster son's backpack. It was covered in crumbs, and she peered deeper into the recesses of the backpack. If she reached down there, would her hand meet something gooey or sticky?
Unfortunately, it'd happened before—last week.
Maybe if she'd raised the trio, ten-year-old PJ, his seven-year-old sister, Lindsey, and their twelve-year-old cousin, Casey, she'd be used to crumby backpacks. Or the sheer number of food wrappers that kept appearing on the floorboards of her minivan.
But Jilly had only been fostering the kids for six weeks, so every sticky mess—like the unknown substance that had coated the TV remote yesterday—was a surprise.
She was trying to be cool about it. She'd spent years cleaning up after her kid sister, Iris. Her foster kids obviously hadn't learned much hygiene in their former placements. It was no big deal.
But she still wiped down the folder with a baby wipe—those things were gold—and washed her hands at the kitchen sink before she opened it. After dinner, PJ and Casey had both insisted their homework was finished. But she'd seen the furtive look that had passed between them before they'd asked to be excused.
She could hear them chattering from the living room, but she couldn't make out what they were saying. She'd learned that noise was a good sign. It was when the kids got quiet that they were up to mischief.
Her feet were killing her today, and she sank into one of the chairs at the dining table. She paged through the homework in PJ's folder, wincing slightly at his horrific spelling. All three of the kids were behind in their schooling. She'd been working with their teachers and the elementary and middle school counselors, but it was going to be a long road to get them where they needed to be.
That was okay. She'd spent two years fighting the same cancer that had stolen her mom's life. She was no quitter.
A piece of paper had been folded into fourths and tucked behind the last page of homework. Hidden?
Her heart sank as she unfolded it and recognized the signature at the bottom of the printed note. PJ's teacher. It was dated two days before. PJ had been disruptive during read-quietly-at-your-desk time.
This was the second note on his behavior she'd gotten. She'd hoped to make it to Christmas break without having to apologize to his teacher again. So much for that.
She needed to talk to PJ.
She rose and went to the living room doorway.
"—zombie. You know, like that guy from the movie—" Casey whispered.
The boys sat on the couch with their heads together, poring over a spiral notebook. They didn't notice Jilly. A pair of binoculars that had once belonged to Jilly's uncle rested on the coffee table. All three of the kids had been raised in the city, and living on a farm, even a small one like this, had brought its share of surprises. They'd been shocked to live so far from town. Shocked at only having one close neighbor—and Noah Miller was a recluse, so not much of a neighbor at all. Lately, the boys had gotten into birdwatching. She was hoping they might join a scouting program in the spring.
Across the room, Lindsey was curled in a ball on the chair's ottoman, fast asleep. She was constantly pretending to be a cat. The child preferred to stay near her brother. She must've been playing, or watching the boys, and drifted off. It wasn't late, but Jilly knew that Lindsey was still adjusting to being in a new school. Making friends was exhausting. At least, she hoped Lindsey was making friends. At the parent-teacher meeting last month, Lindsey's teacher had said the girl kept to herself and didn't interact with the other children in class, not even during recess.
Lindsey was shy. She still hadn't opened up to Jilly, not really. Mostly, she pretended to be a cat andmeowed.
