My Sunshine

  “How’s my girl?” he asked.

  “Good, Daddy. I miss you, though.”

  “Got a jack-o’-lantern?”

  “Two.”

  “Got cider?”

  “What would Hallo-ween be without it?” she countered.

  When her father was finally satisfied that she was happy, healthy, and celebrating the holiday properly, he said good-bye, sending hugs and kisses to her grandmother before hanging up.

  Laura rushed to the kitchen to heat up some leftover stew for dinner.

  And then she waited for the kids to come. Dusk, normally the time when small children were out in droves on Halloween, came and went without any knocks on the door. Laura stood at her kitchen window and watched throngs of trick-or-treaters descend on her landlord’s house, but none of them seemed to realize that someone lived over the garage. Laura considered opening the window to holler at them. But how silly would that be?

  Disappointed, she called her grandmother.

  “Oh, honey, I’m sorry. I know how you love to see all the little kids in their costumes. Next year you’ll have to come over here. I’ve had oodles of kids, so many I’m almost out of candy.”

  Just then Etta’s doorbell rang again, so Laura said a fast good-bye and let her go.

  There was nothing interesting on television, so Laura spent the next hour listening to more of her novel on tape. She had just paused the tape player to go wash the makeup from her face and doff her rabbit ears when a knock finally came at the door. Her heart leaped with gladness. One group of trick-or-treaters was better than none at all.

  When Laura opened the door, she found her miniature counterpart standing on the steps, a darling little girl dressed as a pink bunny. The child had huge brown eyes and dark ringlets that cascaded to her shoulders.

  “Trick or treat!” she cried.

  An older boy stepped up behind her and chimed the same words in a deeper voice. He was dressed as a vampire with blood dripping from the corners of his fanged mouth.

  Delighted, Laura opened the door wider. “Step in where it’s warm,” she invited. “You’re my first trick-or-treaters tonight, and I have scads of candy. I’ll load you up.”

  “Can I come in, too?”

  Laura peered past the children to see a tall, lean cowboy standing just beyond the circle of illumination cast by the porch light. Convinced that her eyes were deceiving her, she said, “Isaiah?”

  He stepped closer so she could see him clearly. He wore the brown canvas riding jacket and tan Stetson again, and he looked achingly good to her hungry eyes—long, powerfully muscled legs sheathed in denim, shoulders hunched against the chill, face cast into shadow by the brim of his hat. Her heart lurched oddly in her chest.

  “Meet Rosie and Chad, my niece and nephew. Their mother, Natalie, owns the Blue Parrot, and she’s hostessing a Halloween karaoke party there tonight. Zeke, my brother, is handing out candy at his ranch supply store. I volunteered to take the kids trick-or-treating. Their aunt Valerie, Natalie’s sister, couldn’t do it. She’s staying at Zeke and Natalie’s place to hand out treats so their windows don’t get soaped.”

  Forgetting that she wore rabbit ears, Laura reached up to smooth her hair. When her fingertips encountered velvet, she winced. Why was it that she never looked her best when he dropped by?

  “Please come in!” She drew the children over the threshold. “Do you guys like cider?”

  “I’m quite fond of it,” Rosie replied. “Chad prefers soda pop. It’s his mission in life to rot out all his teeth.”

  “Is not!”

  “Is, too!”

  “Is not!”

  Isaiah entered behind the kids. “Rewind! No fighting. That was the deal. Remember?”

  Flashing Chad daggers with her expressive eyes, Rosie pursed her lips and wrinkled her nose. Under his breath, Chad said, “You’re such a little puke sometimes.”

  “Better to be a little puke than a big one,” Rosie popped back.

  Laura stifled a startled laugh. Isaiah appeared frazzled. Over the tops of the children’s heads, he gave her a look rife with woe, which made her want to laugh again. She’d never seen a big, powerfully built man look more helpless or outflanked.

  “I just happen to have some soda pop in my fridge,” she assured Chad. Pushing the door closed on the chill night air, she added, “I also have heaps of cookies. If you’ll take off your coats and sit at the table, I’ll fix you right up.”

  “Cookies?” the children echoed. “Yum!”

  As the children doffed their outerwear and raced to the kitchen, Laura sent Isaiah a wondering glance. “You live at the other end of town. What brings you over this way?”

  He swept off the Stetson and smoothed a hand over his tousled dark hair. “Poisoned candy.”

  Laura frowned. “What?”

  “Their mother is convinced that it’s dangerous for kids to take candy from strangers. The school threw a big Halloween party on Friday night, but it’s not quite the same as trick-or-treating. My assignment is to haul them all over God’s creation to the homes of people we know. Mom suggested that I take them by your grandmother’s house. Your grandmother mentioned that no kids had visited your place and encouraged me to stop by.”

  “I’m glad you did. I was feeling a little blue. I like to see all the kids.”

  “They’re cuter at a distance.”

  Just then Rosie shrieked. Laura turned to see Chad tugging on his sister’s rabbit ears. “Hey!” Isaiah yelled. “Chad, stop that. Rosie, stop hitting.”

  “Chad’s being obnoxious!” the little girl cried.

  “Am not. You tried to jerk my fangs out.”

  “Only because you can’t eat while you’re wearing them.”

  Laura hurried into the kitchen to straighten Rosie’s ears, reinsert Chad’s fangs, and generally calm the waters. When she looked down into Rosie’s tear-filled brown eyes, she melted. “It’s okay, sweetie. You’re all fixed.”

  Rosie reached up to check her headpiece. When the child had assured herself that her ears were undamaged, she gave Chad another glare and then turned a questioning look on Laura. “Do you have a speech impediment?”

  “Rosie!” Isaiah sounded appalled as he advanced on the kitchen. “That isn’t a nice thing to ask.”

  “It’s all right.” Laura turned the child toward a chair. “I do have trouble talking, Rosie. Five years ago, I dove off into the river and hit my head on a rock. When I woke up, I couldn’t talk.”

  “Not at all?” Chad sat down across from his sister. “That sucks.”

  “Yes,” Laura agreed as she went to put cookies on a plate and get each of the children something to drink. “Pepsi or orange, Chad?”

  “Orange. How come you can talk now, then?”

  “I went to rehab and learned how all over again.”

  Stetson in hand, Isaiah stood with his lean hips braced against the counter, long legs crossed at the ankle. He sent Laura an apologetic look.

  “It’s fine,” she assured him. And it truly was. Despite her sister’s recent avowals that her speech problem was barely noticeable anymore, Laura knew better, and she didn’t mind answering the children’s questions. As she carried their refreshments to the table, she said, “That’s how come I talk so slow and stop between words. I know it bugs people, but for me it’s better than not being able to talk at all.”

  Rosie nodded in agreement. “You do pretty good, actually.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Yum!” Chad cried when he saw the cookies. “They’re frosted.” He grabbed a handful and laid them on his napkin. After taking a big bite from a cookie decorated like a jack-o’-lantern, he moaned and said, “Soft, too! My mom’s are always burned on the bottom and hard as rocks.”

  “Our mom’s a singer and songwriter,” Rosie revealed. “As a result, our dad does most of the cooking because Mommy gets distracted and burns everything.”

  “I see.” Laura couldn’t recall ever having met a little gi
rl with such an impressive vocabulary. “How old are you, Rosie?”

  “I’m six.”

  “Liar, liar, pants on fire,” Chad cried in a singsong voice. “You won’t be six until February!”

  “So?” Rosie cried. “February is nearly here.”

  “You still aren’t six yet. Don’t tell fibs. Mom will scrub your mouth out with soap.”

  “She’s almost six,” Laura intervened.

  Mollified but still disgruntled, Rosie took a dainty bite of cookie. “Uncle Isaiah, you really must try one of these. They’re delicious.”

  Laura returned to the kitchen, all but shaking her head in amazement at Rosie’s command of English. “Does it run in the fami-ly?” she asked Isaiah.

  He grinned. In a voice pitched low so only Laura might hear, he said, “We aren’t actually related. My brother Zeke is their adoptive father. Their real dad was killed.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Robert wasn’t much of a father.” He shrugged out of his jacket. Underneath he wore a cardinal red, long-sleeved, Western-cut shirt that lent his already dark skin a deeper burnish. “The kids are a lot better off with my brother. Zeke loves them like his own, and he’s shaping up to be a great dad.”

  Laura followed him with her gaze as he went into the living room to hang his jacket and hat on the coat tree. “You aren’t wearing a costume,” she noted.

  “Rosie tried to make me into a ghost, but the sheet only went to my knees.”

  “It’s probably just as well. The cowboy look is more you.” Laura went to ladle them each some cider and arrange more cookies on a plate. Cupping a hot mug in her hands, she leaned against the work island across from him. With a glance at the children, whose mouths were now too stuffed with cookies for either of them to fling insults, she asked, “Is your night of torture almost over?”

  “Don’t I wish. There’s a big subdivision on this side of town that Nattie says is safe. Mostly young people with families live there. I’ll let them run amok for a while. Hopefully they’ll wear themselves out and be able to fall asleep at the regular time. School tomorrow.”

  “You’ll keep a close eye on them, I hope.”

  “I’ll walk with them. Chad’s old enough to look after Rosie, but you never know what kind of kooks may be out on the streets tonight.” He cocked a dark eyebrow. “You want to come?”

  Laura hadn’t been out on Halloween in years. It sounded like fun, and she wanted very badly to say yes, but her deepening affection for him was starting to alarm her. “Thanks for asking me. But I should stick around here just in case any kids come.”

  “No one’s knocked on your door all night.”

  Laura felt herself wavering. He was so nice, and she enjoyed his company so much. As long as she kept her head out of the clouds, what harm could come from their being friends? “Only if I can go as I am and trick-or-treat with the kids.”

  She fully expected him to hoot with laughter. Instead he grinned, shrugged, and said, “Whatever turns your crank. I’d appreciate some adult company.” He tipped his head, arched a dark brow, and gave her a pleading look. “Please? If you don’t come along, I may strangle them before the evening’s over.”

  Laura wasn’t at all worried that Isaiah might do his niece and nephew physical harm. She’d seen him with animals and knew how limitless his stores of patience could be in trying situations. And wasn’t that the whole problem? She didn’t just like this man. She admired him as well.

  For the second time in as many minutes, little warning bells jangled in her mind. Unfortunately Isaiah Coulter had an irresistible way about him, even when he wasn’t trying. When he shifted into persuasive mode, Laura found it difficult, if not impossible, to tell him no.

  For Isaiah, what had begun as a begrudging duty—playing chauffeur to two quarreling children—turned out to be a delightful evening. Just as Laura had threatened, she wore her bunny costume to the upscale subdivision, her only concession to practicality the pink parka she sometimes wore to work, donned for warmth. Isaiah had always thought Laura was beautiful, but watching her traipse up countless steps with Rosie to knock on doors and holler, “Trick or treat!” in that slow, halting way of hers drove home to him that real loveliness ran much deeper than the skin.

  Over the years he had dated countless women, most of them physically gorgeous, but never had he known anyone as natural, spontaneous, or sweet as Laura Townsend. Oh, sure, he’d known gals who made a good show of it, pretending to love ani-mals, kids, and spur-of-the-moment activities. But then an acrylic nail got broken, hosiery got snagged, or a child’s gooey hands met with perfectly styled hair, and the pretense ended.

  There was no pretentiousness in Laura. When a barking, growling Great Dane managed to slip past its owner onto a porch, she didn’t tumble backward down the steps in terror as many women might have. Instead she removed her bunny ears to look more normal and crouched down to make friends with the snarling beast. When Rosie got Snickers chocolate all over her hands and touched Laura’s cheek, Laura laughed, licked a fingertip to clean away the stickiness, and then popped the digit back in her mouth, saying, “Yum, can I have some more?”

  In short, the kids absolutely loved her, and Isaiah found her pretty hard to resist himself. Even with rabbit whiskers and floppy ears, she managed to appeal to him in a way no other woman ever had.

  Over the course of the evening, Isaiah kept recalling how she’d looked earlier when she opened the door to Rosie—all dressed up with nowhere to go. The decorations inside her apartment indicated that she really got into celebrating the holidays. Seeing her surrounded by Halloween cheer, yet so terribly alone, had saddened him. It seemed a shame that someone with so much to offer had no one to share it with.

  “I got more than you guys!” Chad cried as he raced ahead of Laura and Rosie back to the sidewalk, where Isaiah waited.

  “No, you didn’t!” Rosie cried.

  “Did, too!”

  “Did not!”

  Isaiah was about to break a molar from clenching his teeth when Laura held up her sack and cried, “I got the most!”

  Chad and Rosie both yelled, “Did not!”

  Laura cried, “Did, too!”

  And the word fight began again. Only this time, there was a twist at the end that set Isaiah to laughing. Laura engaged in the volley for a time, saying, “Did, too,” until the kids fell into the rhythm, and then she suddenly switched sides on them, crying, “Did not!” Chad and Rosie automatically countered with, “Did, too!”

  Laura laughed. “Gotcha!”

  Soundly trounced, the children giggled and hurried away to the next house. Before they’d covered three sections of sidewalk, however, they were elbowing each other off the cement, trying to trip each other, and spilling much of their candy in the process. Isaiah was about to collar both kids and give them a scolding when Laura cried, “Finders keepers!”

  The next instant she was dashing about, collecting the lost candy and putting it in her sack, her powder-puff tail flashing beneath the hem of her coat every time she bent over. Laughing, Isaiah followed her lead, grabbing all the candy he could before the kids were able to retrieve it.

  “That’s mine!” Rosie protested.

  “Not now.” Laura scooped up more of Chad’s loot before he pounced on it. “I don’t need to ring doorbells walking behind you guys. I can get more candy this way.”

  Chad and Rosie hurriedly retrieved the spillage that hadn’t yet been confiscated.

  “You’re adults,” Rosie complained. “You’re not supposed to take candy from children.”

  Unabashed, Laura flashed a triumphant grin at Isaiah before replying, “Kids aren’t supposed to fight, either. If you break the rules, I guess we can.”

  Clearly at a loss, Rosie pursed her lips and frowned. Chad huffed in disgust. “Come on,” he said to his sister. “We can get more candy at the next house.”

  As the kids walked ahead, Isaiah heard Chad mutter to his sister, “No
more fighting. Okay? If Uncle Isaiah tells on us, we’re gonna get in big trouble.”

  “You pushed me first!”

  “Only because you elbowed me.”

  “Only by accident!”

  “Ha.”

  “Yes, sir! I was trying to see inside my sack and just bent my arm. I didn’t mean to elbow you.”

  “Why didn’t you say so, then?”

  “Because you pushed me!”

  Chad sighed, straightened his sister’s ears, and compromised with, “I’ll say I’m sorry if you will.”

  Rosie sighed theatrically. “I’m sorry.”

  “Me, too.”

  Having reached a tentative peace agreement, they broke into a run. Isaiah shook his head, wondering if Laura’s slow speech made the children listen more closely to her than they did to him. “That’s amazing. Do you know how many times I’ve asked them to stop fighting tonight?”

  Laura only smiled.

  “You’re great with kids,” he told her. “It’s a shame you don’t have any of your own.”

  She fell into step beside him, her breath forming little puffs of steam in the crisp night air. In the illumination of the streetlights, her eyes shimmered like polished topaz. “I planned to, but then I got hurt, and things changed.” She wrinkled her nose and shrugged. “It was very hard for my friends. I couldn’t talk to them, so after a few visits they stopped coming to see me. My boyfriend felt bad for me, but there was nothing in it for him any-more, and it wasn’t long before he broke it off.”

  Essentially the same thing had happened to Isaiah’s sister, Bethany, after her riding accident. Isaiah had no use for men who bailed out when a woman needed them the most. That was the way it often went, though. Some guys loved a woman only as long as loving her was easy.

  “It’s still not too late for you to have a family,” he told her. “You’re young yet.”

  “I’m thirty-one, Isaiah.”