Without pause, she scrunched up her face. “I don’t have a daddy. But that’s okay. I got a grandpa and an Uncle Brent and Dr. Stephen.”
The kid knew how to wrap her little fingers around a man’s heart. He felt as if he’d been bestowed a great honor.
Macy reached for Anamaria’s hand and squeezed it. “Thank you.”
Anamaria might be psychic, but she hadn’t expected the touch. The surprise showed in her dark eyes and the deep relief of her smile. “You’re welcome. We’d love to have Clary over for a playdate this week. When my two get tired of playing with each other, it becomes more like combat. ‘Oops, I didn’t mean to hit you with the bat.’ ‘Sorry I tore your doll’s head off, and oh, gosh, there goes her leg.’ They would be thrilled with the distraction of Clary.”
“That sounds wonderful. She’s been here less than two days and already she’s booored.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” Anamaria said. She rose gracefully from the steps, the very essence of beauty and serenity, and called to her kids. Before walking away, though, she faced Macy head-on. “Remember what I told you your first day back?”
Macy nodded.
“That hasn’t changed.” Moving away from her, Anamaria patted Stephen’s arm reassuringly. “It’s good to see you.”
After Anamaria and her children crossed the street, Stephen glanced at Macy, who was watching them. “What did she tell you?”
She looked at him and smiled. “Just something that I really needed to hear. And now something that I really need to say—it’s time to head home. We’ve left Brent and Anne to work long enough.”
“Mama!” Clary stomped one foot and somehow managed to collapse in on herself while remaining standing, then huffed and straightened. “Oh, all right. I wish Grandma and Grandpa weren’t off on that stupid trip. I bet Grandpa would take me to the beach, and then to a movie, and he’d buy me a giant popcorn and pop and would read me stories when we got home. He wouldn’t just put stupid things in stupid boxes...”
Tuning out the rest, Stephen met Macy’s gaze and at the same time they rolled their eyes.
When they returned to the big house that, knowing what he now knew, kind of freaked out Stephen, too, Brent and Anne were working in the library. About a third of the shelves had been emptied, and a small mountain of book-packing cartons were stacked in the hallway. They were both pink-cheeked and looked in need of a break.
Stephen picked up a leather-bound volume and turned it carefully. “You do have an inventory of all these titles, don’t you?”
Anne’s eyes doubled in size. “We were supposed to be inventorying them?” With a pointed look at the boxes already sealed, she sank into a chair.
“I’m sure there’s one...somewhere.” Macy didn’t say more, but Stephen figured they all understood where: in Mark’s office. “Besides, I don’t need an inventory to give them away.”
“What about the tax deduction?” Brent asked.
“Don’t care.” Dismissively she assembled a box on one of the tables and taped the bottom seam with a loud rip of the dispenser.
Exchanging shrugs, Brent and Anne went back to work, and Stephen did what he did best: began moving the boxes from the hallway to the garage. Any library in the country would be thrilled to receive this donation, but particularly one in the South, given the number of Southern histories and biographies he’d seen on his first time in the room. The collection was probably worth a not-so-small fortune, but Macy couldn’t wait to see the last of it.
Now he understood why.
Clary was fussy by the time he finished moving the boxes, so he led her to the table holding the jade figurines. “Would you like to help me wrap these in a box so your mom can send them to your...”
“To Grandmother Lorna,” Macy supplied from her position on a ladder handing books down to Brent.
“Are we gonna wrap them like presents?” Clary’s eyes lit up. “Like birthday presents?”
“Well, sort of, but in plain paper.”
“Okay.”
He gave her two of the carvings to carry, cautioning her to be careful, then filled his hands, and they went into the kitchen. After two more trips, he lifted Clary onto a stool at the island, assembled a box and got a new package of paper from the garage.
“Are these toys, Dr. Stephen?” she asked, clutching one in her pudgy fingers and looking at it from all angles.
“No, honey. They’re just carvings for people to look at.” He laid out