“A second later, I turned back, and the place where I was going to step just literally crumbled away. The ground, the dirt and rocks and the hoop, everything tumbled down the cliff side onto the rocks below.”
Margaret paused again. “If I had stepped where I was going to, I would have been killed.”
Lydia looked up at her. “You think it was your mama?”
“I don’t know.”
“I think it was,” Lydia said with more surety than Margaret had ever felt about that incident. To this day she could still feel that touch on her arm as vividly as if someone had just touched her again. And since it didn’t make logical sense, she never spoke of it. Until now. But she’d felt it as surely as she’d seen Muddy fly.
She looked down at Lydia and sighed. Both braids stuck out like cattle horns. “I think I’m still not doing this right.”
Lydia reached up and felt the braids and frowned. “Want me to take them out?”
Lydia shook her head and one braid drooped. But it didn’t matter. Because Lydia reached out and slid her arms around Margaret’s waist, hugged her, and said, “Thank you.”
* * *
Hell,she’d been thinking again. Hank recognized that walk. He stood in the waist-high water after his morning swim and watched her march down the beach toward him. Smitty stopped at the waterline and crossed her arms in that annoying way she had when she was about to start a stupid argument or demand equality or tell him he was wrong.
“We need to talk about the children.”
“What about them?” He slicked the hair out of his face and wiped away the water that was running into his eyes.
She wasn’t looking him in the eye. She was staring at his chest. He looked down, wiped it a few times, but didn’t see anything.
“I think we need a chest—” She shook her head a second, muttered something he didn’t hear, and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Let me start over.” She looked up at him.
He waved her on. “Go ahead.”
“We need a schedule, an agenda so to speak. To both spend time with the children individually and together. I think we need a plan.”
He crossed his arms. “Theodore and I already have plans.”
“But Lydia needs to be involved, too. She needs to be included as much as Theodore, maybe more so.”
“She’s a girl.”
She arched a brow at him “And...”
“You’re a woman. She should be with you.”
“She lost her father, too.”
“I’m no father substitute, Smitty. I told the kid that and I’m telling you that. No way.”
“You can’t make her feel excluded because of her sex.”
He gave her a wicked grin. “Sex includes, it doesn’t exclude. Want me to show you, sweetheart?”
“I’m trying to have a rational conversation, and you are being purposely obtuse and lewd.”
“Well, Smitty, let me tell you something for a change. I’m no chump. You’re asking me for help after you stole, burned, and shot my booze. You’re the one who wants the world to be fair and equal.” He laughed. “That’s like you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. No backscratch. No deal.”
“I’m thinking of Lydia, not myself.”
“And that’s your problem, Smitty. You think too much.”
“You’re better off—we all are—without you being drunk.”
