Free Tumbling Blocks by Earlene Fowler Page B

Once Millee sees this handsome little guy, she’s going to want to play with him.”
    “Be my guest. Bring him back whenever you want.”
    As she started out the door, Scout got up from his customary place in the hallway and followed her.
    “Oh, my,” Beebs said. “Looks like I’ll be watching two dogs.”
    I laughed. “Scout’s no dummy. He knows who’s got the good dog treats.”
    “C’mon, big brother,” Beebs said. “Let’s go find your aunt Millee.”
    I made it to the train station five minutes before Kathryn was due to arrive.
    “Where have you been?” Gabe asked. He paced across the shiny floor of the mission-style Amtrak train station located a mile from our house.
    “Had to find a sitter for Boo. Doggie day care closes at seven p.m. Beebs is watching him until we get home.”
    He slipped an arm around my shoulders. I could tell he was nervous by the slight vibration in the air surrounding him.
    “Don’t worry, Friday,” I said, circling his waist with my arm. “Your mom will have a great time.” My words were full of a false bravado that would have been obvious to a six-year-old.
    “I know,” he said, his voice low with tension.
    When the announcement of the train came over the crackly loudspeaker, we walked outside to meet it. I said a quick prayer for two weeks’ worth of patience and waited for the train to roll to a stop.
    I rested my hand on the small of Gabe’s back as he searched the crowd for his mother’s face. Minutes passed, then he saw her.
    “Mom!” he called over the heads of hugging and chattering passengers.
    He weaved his way through the crowd toward her snowy-haired figure, towering over the other passengers. I’d forgotten how tall she was, that her genes were where Gabe inherited his long, lean figure. I followed him and watched him pull his mother into a hug.
    Please, Lord, I prayed, glancing around her, don’t let Daphne be with her. And, please, help her focus on something else besides my inadequacy as a wife.
    Like all my prayers, it was answered, just not in the way I expected.
    Gabe was so intent on hugging his mother that he failed to notice the man standing directly behind Kathryn. The man who wasn’t moving toward some waiting wife or child. Not moving in that way that says, I’m with this person. He was tall, taller than Gabe or Kathryn, both of whom were six feet. His face was tanned the reddish brown of someone who works outdoors, and his cheekbones were gaunt to the point of reminding me of a childhood image of Ichabod Crane. He wore a hat like the kind they did in the forties. What was it called—a fedora? His suit was obviously custom-fitted for his unusually tall frame.
    Though I’ve never claimed to be psychic, it didn’t take a great premonitory talent to sense that something big was about to happen. I forced myself to smile and walked up to Gabe and Kathryn.
    “I’m so glad to see you, Mom,” Gabe was saying, reaching down to pick up the plaid overnight bag at her feet. “I bet you’re starved.”
    The man behind Kathryn took a step closer. In that moment, he caught my eye. They were the bright blue of a California winter sky. He smiled and gave me an amused wink.
    “We are starved,” Kathryn said, smiling at me. “We waited to eat because I was sure Benni had something wonderful planned.”
    “Soup’s on,” I said, glancing at her, then back at the man standing behind her. “And I mean that literally.”
    My husband’s police-trained nature finally kicked in when he heard the word we , and his gaze settled on the man standing behind Kathryn. Had I been the recipient of that look, I would have hopped back onto that idling train and ridden it clear to Canada. This man, obviously comfortable in his own skin, just smiled.
    Gabe looked back at his mother. “We?”
    She smiled at him, not a bit afraid, even though he wore his most suspicious, stern police chief face. Then again, this was the woman who changed his diapers and taught