buying mostly frozen food and packaged cookies, plus some magazines and the Sunday Seattle Times. Neither of the two were familiar to either Conall or Henderson. They took pictures and sent them off to see if a match could be made. Conall waited semi-patiently for the late-night visitors to return, but it didn’t happen.
He marveled at how little he minded. He should be getting irritable by now. Two weeks, and no breaks. That wasn’t unusual, but he preferred action of almost any kind to these long, wait-and-see-what-happens gigs. This time…okay, this time he was enjoying himself. He decided he would think of it as a vacation. He didn’t often do those, but this could be a good, if unlikely, substitute.
He mentioned to Lia his observation about Walker, and she made an appointment to take him to an ophthalmologist for an eye exam. The kid came home wearing glasses. He looked surprisingly cute in them, and he kept saying in amazement, “Wow. I never noticed before.” He spent a lot of time staring at blades of grass or spiderwebs in the barn and even faces. Heck, The Transformers would probably seem new to him.
They played baseball every day, the boys noticeably gaining strength and skill until they were keeping Conall on his toes. Neither had ever played soccer, so he taught them that sport, too.
“You must have played when you were a kid,” Lia said at dinner one evening, but he shook his head.
“Little League, but not soccer. These past few years I’ve spent a lot of time in Latin America. Everyone plays. Well, the boys and men play,” he amended, grinning at the way Lia’s eyes narrowed.
“The village where I lived had a soccer field,” she said. “Not really a field because it was bare dirt, but that’s where they played.”
“Most of them are bare dirt. Not only in Mexico. South Africa, Greece…” He shrugged. “Any place with a dry climate where they can’t afford to water a field that isn’t productive.”
Brendan wanted to know what he meant about productive, and he explained, “Where they grow food. Or grass to feed animals that provide food.”
“Oh. Like Lia waters her garden.”
“Right.” They were eating the first green beans from her garden tonight, and they were really good. Jeff and Conall alternated nights at the dinner table, although Jeff had mostly conceded him the days downstairs.
“Those boys freak me out,” he’d said. “They’re like zombies. I don’t know what to say to them.”
“You were supposed to be the expert on kids.”
“I guess I’m not that good with them. My own are— They’re normal. You know?”
“Because their father didn’t walk out on them and their mother hasn’t died.”
He’d flushed, and Conall regretted his harsh tone. Henderson was an okay guy, but he’d grown up in a normal family himself and then found himself a nice wife. He wasn’t what you’d call imaginative. Conall found himself spending more and more waking hours downstairs with Lia and the kids. He felt a little guilty about that, but Jeff bored him.
Conall should be bored with eight- and ten-year-old boys, too, but he wasn’t. These two were really growing on him. He liked less and less thinking about what their future held. They could be happy here with Lia, couldn’t they? Why shouldn’t she keep them?
Conall knew they’d been curious about what was happening in the attic, so when Brendan asked to come upstairs and see the equipment the men were using to spy on the house next door, Conall agreed. Lia looked a little more doubtful, but finally said, “Well, I guess.”
Maybe he shouldn’t be sharing so much with the kids, but he couldn’t see how they’d be a risk. They never went anywhere or talked to anyone outside the household. Sorrel was a different story; Conall still worried about her opening her mouth at the wrong time or place. But what was the harm in giving Walker and Brendan something new to think about?
Walker almost immediately became distracted by the other wonders the attic held. He bounced on the bed and said wistfully, “It would be fun if we could sleep up here.” The naked mannequin was a source of great fascination for him.
Conall, grinning, asked, “Haven’t you ever seen a girl naked before? Or your mom?”
Walker’s eyes got wide and he shook his head so hard he had to grab for his new glasses. “My mom? I barely even saw her in a bathing suit. Right, Bren? And I never saw a girl without