Cherished - By Kim Cash Tate Page 0,68

I love it.” She looked at her daughter again. “Heather, honey, let me introduce you. This is Cliff. He’s a friend of . . .” She looked confused. “Who did you come with?”

“Mike.”

“Oops.” Diane laughed, covering her mouth. “He’s my boyfriend.” She glanced around. “I’d better find him before he gets mad at me.”

Heather leaned close to her mother. “Mom, what’s that smell? Are you letting people smoke that stuff down here?”

“Since when is that a big deal? Don’t people use it as medicine these days? Certainly makes me feel better.”

Heather sighed, ready to leave already.

Diane grabbed a younger guy walking past. “Tim, this is my daughter, the one I was telling you about. Didn’t I tell you she’s a hottie?”

Heather gave her mother a look. “Mom, please.” She turned back to the guy and extended her hand. “Hi, I’m Heather. Nice to meet you.”

He lifted her hand and kissed it. “Pleasure’s mine. Wanna dance?”

“Um, not right now. But thanks.”

Diane tugged on her hand. “What is with you? That guy’s gorgeous.”

Diane had always acted more like a girlfriend than a mother, setting Heather up with guys, handing her mixed drinks as a teen. But it never seemed sad to her until this moment.

“I’m really not feeling my best,” Heather said. “Maybe I can come visit with you tomorrow.”

“Aww, but I’d hate for you to miss the party—hey, is that a gift for me?”

Heather remembered the bag in her hand. “Oh, I meant to leave it in the kitch—” Why try to explain? “I’ll just take it to your room.”

“You’ll do no such thing. I wanna see my gift. Is it the perfume I like?” Diane took the bag from Heather and stuck her hand beneath the tissue. “What’s this?” She lifted it out. “A Bible?”

Heather cringed.

Diane burst into laughter. “Hey,” she called to those around her, “my daughter gave me a Bible for my birthday.” She held it up in the air. “Think she’s trying to tell me something?”

People raised their beer bottles and cheered.

“When’s the Bible study, Diane?” one of them asked.

Diane thought that was even funnier. “Yeah, I’ll let you know,” she yelled. She turned to Heather. “So what’s the deal? You turn religious on me? You must be conspiring with that brother of yours.”

Heather frowned. “Ian? What does he have to do with it?”

“Oh, he tried sending me a Bible a few years ago. Now he just puts Bible verses in birthday cards. Got one today. Haven’t even opened it.”

“You never told me that,” Heather said.

Diane shrugged. “You never asked.” She put the Bible back in the bag and handed it to Heather. “No offense, honey, but I would’ve used the perfume.”

Cliff took her hand and got her dancing again.

Heather eased back upstairs, avoiding the eyes of those in her path, wondering about her half brother. She didn’t know him well at all. Diane had given birth to him at nineteen but had no interest in raising him. His paternal grandparents took him first, and when Ian’s father married, the father’s wife adopted him. Heather remembered a couple of visits here and there when she was younger and school pictures in the mail, but it had been years since she’d seen or heard about him. He was a believer?

She walked down the hall, took the Bible out of the bag, and tucked it inside her mother’s nightstand. Then she stopped back in the kitchen, which was deserted now. Out of curiosity, she checked her mother’s mail pile. There in the stack was a card with a return address sticker that said Ian and Becky Engel. So he was married. She wondered if they had any kids—if she had any nieces or nephews.

Heather wrote down their Illinois address. After all these years, she suddenly had a real desire to know her brother.

twenty-two

CYD HAD A GROGGY UNDERSTANDING THAT A PHONE was ringing, but she didn’t know how to answer it. When she realized that it wasn’t a dream, she reached for her cell from the nightstand and answered, but no one was there.

Cedric rolled over. “Babe, get the phone.”

“I’m trying.”

Forced to pry her eyes open, she realized it was the landline. Goodness. What would she do when her baby needed her in the middle of the night? Was there a mommy thing that kicked in to help a person get her bearings?

“Hello?”

“Sorry to wake you, Cyd.”

She sat up. “Dana?” She saw the time now—6:00 a.m. “Is something wrong?”

“No. Well. Can you meet me before church to talk, maybe at