Free The Angel Whispered Danger by Mignon F. Ballard Page B

don’t think she’s enjoying it.”
    My cousin pulled away, her hands still on my shoulders. “We love having Josie with us, don’t worry about that. You’re the one who concerns me.” Marge frowned, ignoring Jon, who tugged at her sleeve. “It’s Ned, isn’t it? Something’s wrong. You can’t fool me, Kate McBride.”
    I didn’t answer, which I knew was as good as an admission. “Not my best summer vacation,” I mumbled.
    Burdette appeared behind us carrying a sleeping Hartley as he shepherded Josie and the two older boys before him. “You kids get in the car and be quick about it . . . or I might be forced to sing.”
    “Mi-mi-mi!” he rasped off-key, then made a face. “We wouldn’t want that now, would we?”
    The three scampered out the door shrieking, with my daughter in the lead. She didn’t look back.
    Marge again gathered up the shoes and followed, pausing in the doorway. “Look, you don’t have to stay here, you know. Uncle Ernest and the others should be back at any minute. Why don’t you come along with us—for tonight at least? It’ll give us a chance to talk.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “There’s leftover peach cobbler, and I hid some ice cream behind the frozen broccoli.”
    I laughed. “Hey, don’t tempt me, but Leona would freak out if she came downstairs and found everybody gone, and frankly I wouldn’t feel so good about leaving her.” I followed her out to the porch. “I would like to talk, though. Maybe we can sneak away tomorrow and snatch a few minutes alone.”
    “Fat chance,” my cousin said, “but we’ll work on it.”

    I tested locks on all the doors as soon as Marge and the others left, then called my parents’ answering machine to see if they’d left a message informing me of my “aunthood,” although I felt certain they would telephone us at Bramblewood if Sara’s baby had come. My mother would never settle on leaving such an important announcement on a machine, and I knew she wouldn’t be satisfied until she described in great detail my new little niece or nephew.
    And my parents weren’t the only ones who hadn’t phoned. I knew I shouldn’t hope, but it seemed that whenever I was at my most vulnerable, an annoying little smiley face would spring out from deep inside of me and sing sunshiny lyrics like “He’ll be comin’ ’round the mountain when he comes.” I quickly squashed the saccharine intruder. My husband wouldn’t be coming around this mountain any time soon—if ever—and he wasn’t going to telephone, either.
    Uncle Lum had called earlier to tell us that he and Grady had finally convinced Uncle Ernest to go home and get some sleep and that the three of them were stopping for a bite of supper on the way.
    Amos settled himself on the rug in front of the door and promptly went to sleep, and I wandered around the empty house picking up paper cups and napkins that had been overlooked when we collected our after-supper litter. My aunt Leona would be sacked out by now in the bedroom at the end of the upstairs hall—too far away to hear me yell if the flashlight-bearing prowler in blue decided to return. And I knew she slept with earplugs because we’d all heard her complain of Uncle Lum’s snoring. The old house creaked for no good reason except that it was night, and that’s what old houses usually do then. At least, that’s what I told myself. I looked at the clock on the mantel. Marge and company had been gone over half an hour. Surely Grady and my uncles would be home soon.
    There was nothing of interest on Uncle Ernest’s bookshelves. (No surprise there!) And if I turned on the television, I might not be able to hear if anyone
was
trying to force his way inside. It occurred to me that maybe this wasn’t such a bad idea, and I was checking the newspaper for the schedule when I heard the cat meowing from the kitchen.
    Poor Dagwood! In the frenzy of the day, I doubted if anyone had thought to feed him. I was on my way