Beckett (Robinson Destruction #4) - Kathi S. Barton Page 0,49

Conor and me, so neither of us wanted to tell on him. Besides, his mommy and daddy weren’t nice anyway. They said that they had raised him right. Perhaps it was just us that was making him lash out. One day Conor and I were waiting at the ice cream truck for our turn. Billy, that was his name, watched us. I knew he was going to try and take our treats. So you know what we did? We bought him a treat as well. When he came toward us to do his nastiest, Conor handed him the cone we’d bought, and we walked away. He was a little bit nicer to us after that. Not all the time, but he wasn’t as mean.” She looked at Anna. “I have no idea why I told her that. It just came out.”

“You comforted her with your story. Not the words, but that you were talking to her in a calm voice. Look, she’s ready to fall asleep now.” She was too. Blinking longer and longer until she just left her eyes closed. “You and your brother haven’t had an easy life, have you?”

“I don’t think we were as bad as some families were. The homes they put us in when we lived at the foster place were terrible places, but it wasn’t so bad since we were together. But the people were getting meaner about things as we kept failing to be a family with them.” Anna told her it wasn’t them. “I guess I sort of know that too. When those people tied me to the bed, all I could think about was that I was going to die. I closed off my mind to what was going to happen and thought of something that Conor and I had done that was fun. Conor saved me. He was hurt, but he told me he’d die for me. Beck and Allie, they’re nothing like the others, are they?”

“No. They’d die for you as well. You understand that, don’t you?” Holly said she didn’t know. “Trust me when I tell you, honey, they’d do anything in the world to save you from harm.”

“Conor gets into trouble a lot. Not as much as he used to when we first moved in with them, but he said that he hates them sometimes. Like I said, not so much as he did the first day or two. Then he tells me that he loves them too. I do like them a great deal, but they scare me. Not them, I guess, but that they could turn us back over to the home. Conor said he’s feeling that too. Like they’re just waiting for us to be happy, then they’ll take it away from us.”

“I know you have no reason to believe me, but they’re never going to get rid of the two of you. Ever. They’ve fallen in love with you.” Holly said that she heard Allie crying sometimes. “Have you asked her why?”

“No. I’m not sure how to ask her.” Holly looked at the baby sleeping in her arms. “I’ve been thinking that as soon as they have their own kids, they’ll not want us anymore. I mean, you have three babies here. Would you adopt another one and treat them the same?”

“Holly, these three babies aren’t of my body. I didn’t give birth to them. But they’re mine the same as if I had. I love them that much. But they’re adopted the same as you and your brother, as well as Jimmy.” That shocked her. No one treated them like they were castoffs, and she told Anna that. “Castoffs? I can only assume that someone called you that. Well, it’s not true. All of us, the entire family, is waiting on the two of you to show that you want to be a part of the Robinson family. We all feel like you don’t want to be a part of us.”

Holly thought about that, what Anna said when she went to get on the computer for Rogen. Was it their fault that the others treated them differently? She knew she was trying her best not to get close to them. That way, it wouldn’t hurt so much when they were sent away. She’d done that before, gotten attached to the dog that the Hendersons had, and it had hurt her badly when they were taken from the little mutt.

These weren’t dogs, however. They were real people. People that had made sure she