Some Bright Someday (Maple Valley #2) - Melissa Tagg Page 0,26

the dot this morning. Especially after yesterday. She might’ve been in a daze for most of Saturday, but Sunday had been near-perfection. She’d opted to skip church, figuring it might be too much for the kids . . . and for her.

Instead, she’d spent the day channeling Aunt Lauren. Coaxing giggles, indulging whims. Spoiling the kids.

She’d picked up donuts from the bakery the evening before—with sprinkles for Violet. She’d played hide and seek with Vi, taught Cade how to give a high-five, built a fort from blankets and old bed sheets she’d found in the hallway closet upstairs. And in the evening, as they chomped on homemade popcorn and watched Toy Story, she might’ve even caught Colie smiling once or twice.

But any ground she’d gained with the older girl had dissipated when Jenessa had discovered her listening in on this morning’s phone call. Even now, two and a half hours later, Colie’s look of complete betrayal was enough to set her stomach churning all over again.

I had to make the call. It was the right thing to do.

She poured Carmen a second cup of coffee, eyes glued to the scene in the dining room—Carmen with patience etched into every inch of her expression, seated across from Colie. Quiet as ever.

Surly, more like. Her one-word answers to the social worker were as monosyllabic as all Jenessa’s interactions with her had been in the past two days. She’d bet her entire inheritance on the fact that the only reason the girl hadn’t tried sneaking away again was how content her younger siblings seemed.

Which attested to the fact that somewhere underneath Colie’s leaden gaze and sullen silence was a big sister’s caring heart.

“And the last time you remember seeing your father was . . . when?” Carmen’s slight accent added an extra softness to her voice.

But so far, her gentleness had done nothing to ease Colie. “I already said it was a long time ago.” She huffed, and apparently decided to throw Carmen a bone. “It was last Thanksgiving.”

Jenessa replaced the carafe and picked up Carmen’s mug. She’d tried not to intrude too often as Carmen spoke first with Violet and then Colie. But she hadn’t liked the idea of leaving the girls alone with a stranger either.

Carmen had let Violet off the hook only a few minutes into their conversation. Thankfully, the younger girl seemed completely oblivious to the import and implication of Carmen’s presence. She was happily occupied by Toy Story 2 in the living room now.

Jenessa carried the mug into the dining room and set it in front of Carmen. She darted a glance at Colie, but the girl refused to meet her eyes.

Carmen gave Jenessa a thankful nod. If she was bothered by Jenessa’s loitering in the past thirty minutes, she hadn’t let on. “Is there anything else you can tell me about your dad, Colie? Something that might help us locate him? I know you said he drives semis. When he came home in the past, how long did he stay?”

“A few days.” Colie slouched in her chair. “Sometimes a week.”

“And were he and your mother . . . friendly to one another? Was he nice to you and your sister?”

A shrug.

“He never met Cade?”

A shake of Colie’s head.

“Was there ever a time—maybe a long time ago—when he wasn’t traveling all the time? Did he ever live with your family?”

Colie’s hooded gaze was trained on her lap. “When I was little.”

“Little like Violet? Or like Cade?”

Jenessa nearly jumped from her perch under the kitchen doorframe when Colie slapped her palms to the tabletop. “I’m not a child. You don’t have to treat me like I’m dumb or something. I was seven, okay? That’s when he left the first time, and I didn’t see him again until I was nine. And I don’t know where he is now and he probably doesn’t even know Mom’s dead. Or Grandma.”

A deafening silence filled the room. And if Jenessa had felt a pull at her heartstrings when she’d first laid eyes on the kids in her cottage Friday night, if her heart had twisted and melted with each hour spent with them over the weekend . . . it simply fell apart now. Not at the blunt anger in Colie’s voice, but in the haunting pain hovering just behind it.

The urge had become all too familiar—to go to Colie and pull her into a hug whether she liked it or not.

But before she could move, the squeak of Colie’s chair lanced into