Free And Then Came You by Maureen Child Page A

duly elected—if not completely happy about it—representative, spoke up. “Papa will be back tomorrow, Grace. He went to—”
    “Las Vegas,” Grace interrupted, nodding, “of course.”
    Jo frowned. “How’d you know that?”
    Grace’s features went serenely blank. “Why, one of you girls must have told me.”
    “When could we have told you that?” Mike asked. “We just got here and—”
    Sam cut Mike off before she could finish. How Grace had picked up Papa’s vacation plans on the local gossip train wasn’t really important. “If you want to show me your notes, Grace, we can have the guys get started.”
    “Of course. Just come right over here.” Grace walked past them to an iron bench and table set under the sweeping shade of an elm that had to have been at least a hundred years old. She spread the magazines on the table and flipped open the first one to the page shehad marked. “If you’ll look at this, dear, you’ll see that I want to go a different route in the back bedroom.”
    “Yes, but—” Sam winced and took a long gulp of her too-cool coffee. Oh, she’d be needing gallons of the stuff to deal with Grace. They’d talked about this job just three days ago and everything had been settled. The wood had already been ordered. Scratch that, she thought, already dreading her phone call to the lumber company. Of course, the upside to that was
they
were used to dealing with Grace, too. The people at Wright Wood were probably expecting her call.
    Shooting a desperat “help me” look at Jo, Sam frowned when her older sister deliberately glanced away and did everything but whistle and rock on her heels. Fine, Sam thought. So much for solidarity among sisters. Clearly, she was on her own.
    Grace talked and Sam made notes even while her brain went off on a tangent all its own. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Emma. About Jeff. It was all so surreal. Nine long years and then suddenly they were both back in her life. She had to find a way to make this work. To reach the child she’d thought lost to her forever.
    To survive Grace long enough to get to know her daughter.
    “I think a parquet floor is the way to go in the new library.”
    Oh boy. “Parquet, uh-huh.” Sam groaned and kept writing.
    A cold wind blew up and rattled the leaves overhead. She tried not to think of it in “foreboding” terms. After all, once the disaster hit, it was just
boding
. . . nothing
fore
about it.
    “I’ll get the boys to unload,” Jo said, still studiously avoiding Sam’s gaze as she stalked across the lawn toward the drive.
    Sam sighed and called back, “Tell ’em it’s the east wing this summer.”
    “Right.” Jo lifted one hand and kept going.
    They’d have a talk later about this. But for now, Grace was still talking and it paid to listen up when she was on a roll.
    “If you girls want to get started on the library, you could have some of the men start on the second kitchen. We’ll need new cabinets and I’m thinking a purple granite countertop.”
    Purple
granite? “Sure, Grace. We can do that.”
    Grace tapped one finger thoughtfully against her chin. “Or maybe marble. We’ll have to see.” Then she stopped and grinned conspiratorially. “It’s going to be a wonderful summer, Samantha.” Slowly, though, her grin faded as she took a closer look. “Honey, are you okay?”
    “Fine.” Sam could lie when she had to. She’d just never been very convincing. Now Mike . . .
there
was a woman with a flair for lying. She’d invented more stories than Mark Twain on his best day.
    “If you’ll excuse me for saying so, that’s a load of horse hockey.”
    Sam blinked in surprise. This was the closest Grace had ever come to actually swearing. A memorable moment. Laughing, she said, “Grace, you never cease to amaze me.”
    “That’s very nice, dear, but an evasion nicely said is still an evasion.”
    How did Mike pull off the lying so well that no oneever called her on it? Sam