her standard response to Brent’s teasing, and because he was right, she smacked him on the shoulder. “We could just take Scooter and leave you here, you know.”
“Yeah, but you wouldn’t have near as much fun.” He grinned and turned toward the bedroom off the living room. “Just let me change.”
“Into what? Another white T-shirt?”
His only response was a childish tongue stuck out.
He was back in a couple of minutes in a clean white T-shirt and denim shorts that still bore the creases from being folded.
Clary chatted all the way to the restaurant and was thrilled to help hold Scooter’s leash on the walk from the car. They were seated at a wrought-iron table and chairs, patterns mismatched, in the shade of a crape myrtle. It would be a beautiful setting when the tree was in bloom, though the dropped blossoms would make regular cleanup a necessity.
It was Ellie Maricci herself who took their order, greeting Stephen affectionately, making a big deal over Clary and Scooter and hugging Macy. “I’m glad to see you back here. It’s been way too long.”
A strange sensation swept through Macy, both pleasant and alien. She’d gotten dozens of hugs at Mark’s funeral, but since then, physical contact was pretty much limited to her immediate family—and, now, Stephen. Like Anamaria’s embrace at the park her first day back, Ellie’s hug felt nice and genuine.
“Are you here to stay?”
Aware of Stephen’s gaze on her, Macy shrugged. “I don’t really... There’s so much to do before I think about...”
At least it wasn’t a flat, certain refusal. Stephen would probably find optimism in that.
“I can imagine. But it would be a shame to deprive the young boys of Copper Lake the pleasure of knowing Clary. She’s going to be a heartbreaker someday.” Ellie grinned and winked at Clary, who did her best to wink back, then switched from friend to server mode. “What can I get you folks today?”
* * *
Copper Lake on a pretty spring Sunday was at its best. With little to no touch-up, it could more than do justice to the cover of a glossy tourist brochure. Flowers were blooming, the square was neatly manicured, the war memorials gleamed and the river lazily flowed. Cars filled church parking lots, and delicious aromas drifted on the air as restaurants geared up for the after-church crowds. It was welcoming. Peaceful.
It was home, Stephen realized. Because of his mom’s regular moves, he’d never developed a connection to the places they lived. What was the point when he knew they would be moving on before long? But this town... It had been luck that brought him here, and now he wanted to stay. He belonged.
If only Macy felt the same.
They’d done nothing special—a leisurely breakfast, play on the toys at the riverfront park, a walk around downtown showing Clary her hometown. They didn’t call it that to her, of course. She regarded this visit as a vacation, a trip to a strange place to do boring stuff before returning to the only home she remembered.
How would she feel when Macy took her away from that home? She was three. She would miss her grandparents and Brent and Anne, but she would adapt. He was proof that the ability to adapt was a good thing.
As they approached the square, Clary pointed to River’s Edge across the street. “Is that a church?”
“No, sweetie. It used to be a house. Now people have parties there.”
“It’s a big house,” she said dubiously.
“Yes, it is,” Macy agreed. She didn’t mention that Clary owned such a house herself. It would be one more of those things she didn’t understand.
Clary turned her head and sniffed the air, like a hound on a hunt. “I smell cookies.”
Stephen sniffed, too. “I smell fresh-ground Topeca.”
“Can we have a cookie, Mama? And some whatever he said?”
Macy gave them both reproving looks, then faced A Cuppa Joe, and her own nose delicately twitched. “Coffee.” Though she’d had a cup with her when they picked up him and Scooter, plus another cup with breakfast, she practically sighed the word. “Okay,” she said sternly. “One cup, one cookie. And something besides coffee for you, Clary.”
They turned the corner, where a couple of tables and chairs flanked the coffee-shop door. Stephen looped Scooter’s leash over an iron hook set into the wall, then held the door for his girls.
His girls. He liked the sound of that.
There was never anything simple about a coffee run in Copper Lake. Both Joe Saldana and his wife, Liz,