“Will it be all right if I stay out here then?” His face was eager, but Branna could see he didn’t want to disappoint her. She squashed the small, petty jealousy that welled up inside her. Declan O’Donnell would not hurt the boy. In fact, he was good with children. It was just her he hadn’t wanted around.
Mikey would gain a different kind of knowledge out here, an important kind that included the basics of nature and things that could turn you into a competent adult, just like she had at the hands of the man watching them.
“Sure it will, and we’ll catch up on the homework I have for you another time.”
“I can help him with learning.” Declan O’Donnell gave her a smile that once would have had her responding. Instead, she nodded.
“He’s got the same IQ as me. Not sure if you know what that is, but—”
“One hundred twenty-eight.”
Surprised that he remembered, she looked away and kissed Mikey on his head. After returning inside, she began to bake a peach and cornmeal upside-down cake. She’d make macaroni and cheese too; like her, her father had to eat, even if she didn’t want him in her house.
The recipe wasn’t hard to find in Georgie’s recipe book, as it was headed “Book Club Cake” and underlined in red, twice.
“Let’s hope I don’t buckle under the weight of expectation, Georgie,” Branna muttered, as she melted the butter in the skillet.
She thought about Jake as she sprinkled the sugar into the butter, wondering when he would come back and if he would want to see her when he did. She missed him; it was that simple. He was part of her life now, and she wanted him back in it.
Maybe that was one of the reasons she had come back to Howling. Because she’d known that she wouldn’t be able to maintain that distance here and because, finally, she needed to belong to somewhere and to someone again.
She’d felt something different with Jake McBride from the first day she came back to Howling. He’d challenged those barricades she’d erected and then smashed straight through them, and this time Branna feared that, if he turned away from her, she would never be able to pick up the pieces of her heart again.
Opening the oven, she slipped the pan inside and set the timer.
“One day at a time, Branna,” was what Belle used to say to her when she thought she would simply fold in on herself and disappear under the weight of grief. “Small, tiny steps, Bran, and I’ll be here to help you take each one.”
She owed Belle Smith more than simple friendship; she owed her for saving her life.
“I have to go now, Branna,” Mikey called from the doorway, pulling her from her thoughts.
“Okay, Mikey, you want me to run you home?” He’d come into the kitchen and was sniffing the air like a bloodhound.
“I can ride. It’s still light,” he said, looking through the oven window at the cake. “What’re you making?”
“Peach and cornmeal upside-down cake. I’ll make you one if it works out okay.”
His smile was wide in his dirt-streaked face.
She blew him a kiss before he raced out the door, and then she started to clean up her mess.
“He’s a nice lad.”
“Yes.”
Declan O’Donnell now stood in her kitchen doorway, effectively penning her inside.
“How’s your writing going?’
She turned from the sink, soapsuds dripping off the end of the brush she was using to clean the dishes. “How do you know about my writing?”
“I had someone look out for you when I couldn’t. They kept me up to date on anything you did.”
Branna felt the brush slip through her fingers and fall to the floor at his words.
“You are my daughter, and I have always loved you, contrary to what you believe. There was no way I was leaving you alone and unprotected when I was unable to settle near you, so I found someone I could trust to do it for me.”
She’d always believed she was alone, always believed that no one knew what she did and when; now it seemed that was not true.
