The Path to Sunshine Cove (Cape Sanctuary #2) - RaeAnne Thayne Page 0,6
I should be able to wrap things up here and leave the rest of the job to the guys so I can be home by eight. You would only be a little late.”
“Don’t bother. It’s fine. Finish the job.”
“No. I’ll see what I can do. I don’t want you to miss book group.”
“You said it yourself. You can’t leave the Tanners with a hole in their roof with rain in the forecast. Do what you need to do. I’ll be fine.”
“I’ll do what I can,” he repeated. “I’ve got to go. Love you.”
It sounded so practiced, so casually offhand that she suddenly wanted to cry.
“Bye,” she said, tapping her wireless earbud to end the call.
She stared into space, aching inside for everything that had gotten in the way of the vast love they used to share.
She was distracted from her grim thoughts by a clatter and matching squeals from the girls. When she whirled around, she found Silas and Ava standing over her tray of beautiful sugar cookies, now a jumble of broken glass, crumbs and frosting all over the floor. An entire day of work. She had been working on them all day and had finally perfected the lavender-infused icing.
“Look what you’ve done!” she exclaimed. The stress of the day chasing kids seemed to pour over her like water gushing over the cliffs to the ocean.
“I’m sorry, Mommy,” Ava said, tears dripping. “We didn’t mean to ruin your cookies. I was trying to look at one when you were on the phone. Only look. And Silas grabbed it and the whole tray fell down.”
“They were so pretty.” Grace wandered over to look at the disaster with a mournful look. “Now they’re trash. Should I clean them up and throw them away?”
Grace was being helpful, she knew, but Rachel still couldn’t like the way her daughter was always so eager to throw away anything that wasn’t perfect, whether it was a coloring page where she went outside the line or a toy with a broken piece.
Silas sat down and picked up a cookie piece from the floor. Before Rachel could stop him, he popped it into his mouth.
“Silas, stop. Don’t eat that. There’s glass.”
He looked at her, barely acknowledging she was there, and picked up another broken cookie to eat.
She wasn’t even sure he would notice if he ate glass. His reactions to things were sometimes so far out of the realm of what most people would consider normal. He could hold his hand under hot water without making a sound but have a complete meltdown if she left a tag on his shirt that bothered him.
“No,” she said again and swooped around the kitchen island to pick him up and physically move him out of harm’s way.
As she might have expected, Silas didn’t like that. He wriggled to get down, grunting his displeasure at her. “You’ll hurt yourself on glass,” she said.
He started banging his head back against her, something new and fun he had recently discovered.
“Stop,” she ordered. How did he manage to wriggle his body and buck his head like that at the same time? Sometimes keeping him from danger was like wrestling an angry baby alligator.
She had finally managed to restrain him and calm him a little when the doorbell rang, starting him up again.
“I’ll get it.” Ever helpful, Grace sailed to the front door before Rachel could remind her that they didn’t always have to answer the door every time it rang.
Great. Just what she needed. Someone to witness what a disaster she was making of her life.
Silas continued to fight so that he could be free to eat sugarcoated broken glass while Ava sat on the floor sobbing quietly, though Rachel couldn’t tell whether she was crying because of what she and her younger brother had done or because of the cookies she could no longer eat.
She almost forgot the doorbell had rung until she heard a whoop of excitement out of Grace. A moment later, the last person she expected to see that day walked into the kitchen.
Jess, her older sister. Jess, who lived a rambling life and was usually on the other side of the country.
Jess, who hadn’t given her one single whiff of warning that she might be coming to Cape Sanctuary.
Her sister surveyed the chaos of broken cookies and upset children with the impassive expression she always seemed to wear whenever she was around Rachel and her family.