“I can imagine it. You don’t seem to mind.”
“I don’t. It was a one-off thing, too. Although Cerise tries to convince Nadia that her life would be better with glitter in it.”
They spent the next couple of minutes eating in silence. Brodie glanced up at the blue sky, remembering Mitch’s comment about the tornado that had ripped through Hunt almost a year ago. “I heard about the tornado. Must have been tough to work that scene.”
Mitch grimaced. “It wasn’t the best. Nadia suffered a severe concussion, but she worked through it all. It was only after we loaded Cerise onto one of the helicopters from San Antonio, that it hit her and she tossed her cookies in front of me.”
“Cerise got injured? What happened to her? Was she hurt badly?” The words tumbled out of him, and he couldn’t understand his reaction to the news. He’d met Cerise twice, and one time had been in a tense situation. Yet the thought of herbeing hurt bad enough to be helicoptered to a hospital had the food he’d just eaten balling up into a hard lump in his stomach.
“She and Nadia were at trivia night at Buck’s. The place was wrecked. They’d sought shelter in the kitchen pantry and, well, cans and shelves fell on them. Cerise suffered some internal injuries.” Mitch placed a hand on his shoulder. “She’s okay, now.”
Brodie nodded and pushed his plate away, his appetite suddenly lost.
The trillingof her cell phone penetrated the fog of sleep Cerise was cocooned in. She groaned and flipped over, pulling the covers over her head. Sleep had been a long time coming the night before, even though she’d been exhausted. The transition off night shift back to day shift was a bitch. Thank goodness she had today and tomorrow off to try and get her sleeping pattern back to normal.
The trilling stopped and she breathed out in relief. It was too early to be getting up. A shaft of guilt shimmied through her at not answering the phone. The chances of it being the medical center were slim, but if it was important, they’d call back again.
As if she’d put the edict out into the universe, her phone started up again.
Okay, whoever it was really needed to speak to her.
Tossing back the covers, she slipped out of bed and padded out into the kitchen where her phone was charging on the counter.
“Shit,” she muttered as she saw the name flashing on the screen. The guilt at not answering the first call intensified in her. “Hey, Daphne, what’s up?”
“Hi, Cerise, I’m sorry to bother you so early. But . . .”
“Finn’s been dropped off again?”
Daphne’s sigh was audible down the line. “Yeah, Poppy dropped him off at the home last night. The superintendent called me first thing this morning.”
Cerise gripped her phone a little tighter, anger replacing the guilt. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes. This has got to stop.”
“I know. I know. It frustrates me that she continually does this, but she’s his guardian.”
“When it suits her,” she retorted as she strode back to her room.
“He’s got you though.”
“It’s not enough. He can’t keep going back and forth like this. It’s not good for his mental well-being.”
“I’m aware. Look, I’ve got to go. I’ve got another call. I’ll see you soon.”
Cerise disconnected the phone and tossed it on the bed. When Nadia moved out to be with Mitch, she’d thought about getting another roommate but ever since the tornado, and her near-death experience, she’d been restless. Wanting to do something more. Then it had hit her, she could be a foster mom. As someone who’d grown up in the system, she was aware that so many kids slipped through. No one had wanted to adopt her and the foster homes she’d been placed in hadn’t been the best.
She’d known in her bones that she could give back and create a loving environment for any child that came through her door. The process had been long, and she hadn’t breathed a word of it to Nadia until she’d been approved as a foster mom. Final approval had come in just before Halloween.
When she’d gotten the call a few days later to see if she was able to have her first foster child, she’d been so excited. Her heart had exploded when she laid eyes on Finn Brown the first time. He was the cutest boy who didn’t deserve the life he’d been handed. His Aunt Poppy only wanted him when she was between boyfriends. Cerise would bet her house that when she got to the Kerrville Boys Home today, Poppy had a new boyfriend and that said boyfriend had told her to get rid of Finn so it could just be the two of them.
This would be the third time that had happened since she first fostered him in November. Prior to Finn being placed with her, he’d been shuffled around from foster home to foster home over the past two years. She couldn’t believe CPS hadn’t done anything to prevent Poppy from continually doing what she was doing. But the system was slammed and, as she knew, kids fell through the cracks.
Finn called out to all her mothering instincts, and she’d wanted to protect him as much as possible. After she gave him back the first time, she’d informed Daphne that if it happened again, she would take him in without question. Each time she’d had him for a month.
There had to be something she could do to prevent this from happening again to Finn. She didn’t know what though, but it would come to her. Good ideas always did if she freed her mind. All she knew was, the little boy deserved stability in his home life. He didn’t need to be a rubber ball in his aunt’s world. If she didn’t know what a great kid she had in Finn, then it was her loss. The poor kid was still grieving the loss of his parents. He needed love and hugs—and Cerise would give them to him.
Twenty minutes later she pulled into the parking lot of the red-brick building housing the boys’ home. Like most government-run facilities, it wasn’t much to look at, but thenagain, most of the money was put into providing food and clothes for the kids. It didn’t need to look good on the outside.
She locked her car and made her way up the stairs and into the building. Cerise spied Daphne talking to a man at the counter. She looked up when Cerise walked in.
