The Christmas Clock and A Song For My Mother - Kat Martin Page 0,65
weeks, wanted them to be here for Mother’s Day. Katie didn't think her mom would agree. Mom always got sad on Mother's Day. Other mothers looked forward to their own particular day but no matter what Katie did to make the day special, it never worked. Her mom would pretend to be pleased but the sadness was always there in her eyes.
Katie sighed. It was Saturday. She wondered if her mom would go out tonight with Sheriff Bennett. Katie hoped so. She had never seen her mother as happy as she was when she was with him. She seemed more relaxed, not always on guard the way she was most of the time.
Wouldn't it be cool if the sheriff asked her mom to marry him?
It was a silly idea. They hardly even knew each other.
Katie smoothed Rufus's stiff curls. "I don't think she'd say yes, even if he asked," she said. “She never does what she wants. She always finds some reason she can't.” She looked wistfully back at the house. “Maybe I'll just tell her I don't want to go back, that I want us to stay here with Grandma and Ham and the sheriff. Maybe if I ask her really nice, she'll say yes."
But her mom had a job waiting in Detroit. She couldn't afford to give it up. They needed the money to pay the rent and buy food and stuff.
“I'm gonna miss you, boy.” Katie ruffled the fur around Rufus's neck, adjusted his leather collar, and told herself Detroit wasn't that far away.
But once they left, Katie wasn't all that sure her mom would ever bring her back to Dreyerville again.
Reed left Ham battling it out with his friend Freddy Marvin in a furious game of Ping Pong on the sun porch. Though he'd made Sloppy Joes for the boys, he hadn’t eaten yet. He'd been looking forward to his date tonight with Marly but she had called him at the office and canceled. He could tell by her tone that something was wrong and that it definitely had to do with him.
They had been together almost every night. The dates themselves had been nothing special, just out for a bite to eat or to take in a movie or to go for a walk beside the lake. Once Marly suggested they go for a bike ride, which didn't turn out so well when her old, beat-up bicycle had gotten a flat on the way back home. It was fun just the same and she had laughed and been a good sport about riding the ratty old bike she'd had since she was a kid.
In the beginning, it hadn't been easy to persuade her to keep going out with him since she would be leaving soon and she didn't want to get “that involved.” But eventually, he had worn her down with his persistence, the way he did most everything.
His attraction to her had grown since that first evening on the way to Barney's when she had started opening up to him. After seeing True Lies, they had talked some more. He had told her about how he’d felt after losing Carol and how much he had missed her and Marly had revealed more about her life after she had run away with Burly Hanson. She seemed to trust him as she did few other men. At least that was what she'd said.
“If you can't trust a sheriff..." She had laughed and Reed loved the sound, rich and hearty and sincere. He loved the way her pretty blue eyes seemed to sparkle in a way they hadn't when he had first met her.
She had even been calling her mother Mom. Winnie had told him that. He didn't think Marly realized how much that meant to her mother. Or that in doing it, she had let down her guard a little, broken through some sort of personal barrier.
He thought of the phone call he had just now received and Marly's brusque tone of voice. Something was wrong. He could feel it. He'd always had good instincts and they were screaming at him now.
The edginess he had been feeling grew worse. Knowing he should probably stay away, Reed crossed the living room and headed out of the house. The sun was sinking toward the horizon, reminding him of the date he no longer had. Striding across the lawn, he charged up Winnie's front-porch steps and reached up to bang on the door.