KATE WOKE to find the sun streaming in through the curtains. She sat up with a start and glanced at the clock. The digital display flashed four-fifteen. Damn, she thought, tossing back the covers. Her first full day taking care of the boys and the electricity was out. Odds were, six-year-old Kevin had been up for hours. Anxious to make sure everything was under control in the rest of the house, she grabbed her robe, belted it around her, and went to the bedroom door.
Though she could see the door was unlocked, the handle still wouldn’t budge. Frowning, Kate tried again to no avail. It was definitely stuck and she had the sinking sense it was no accident. So the boys were giving her a welcome of their own, hmm? Amused but far from defeated, Kate grabbed a pair of denim shorts, a T-shirt, and sneakers. She dressed hurriedly, put her hair up in a ponytail, then went back to try the door one last time. It still wouldn’t budge. Which left only one way out. Her bedroom window.
Kate went to the curtains and opened them. She lifted the window, then the screen. Ducking her head, she swung her leg out over the wide wooden sill. She groaned in dismay as something soft, thick and squishy plastered the inside of her thigh. Almost afraid to look, Kate touched a finger to the gooey mess. Peanut butter. Oh, nice, boys, nice.
Well, a little peanut butter had never hurt anyone, Kate told herself sternly as she wiped what she could off with the flat of her hand, then smeared it on the sill, figuring that was going to have to be cleaned, anyway. And she knew by whom! Her heart thudding in her chest, she used her hands as leverage and lowered her sneaker-clad feet onto the ground beneath her. Kate swore again as her ankles stuck to the surprisingly wet ground cover.
Knowing by now there had to be something there, too, Kate looked down at her feet. She was up to her ankles in leaves and—oh, God—was that…maple syrup that had been generously slopped all over the ivy? She touched her finger to it, then lifted it to her face and cautiously sniffed. Yes, it sure was.
“Funny, boys,” Kate muttered as the Texas summer sun shone down on her head. Telling herself she had been a camp counselor for six years and could certainly handle this, Kate made her way out of the ground cover and onto the stone pathway that curved around the house, her shoes smacking irritatingly with every step. She made her way down the sidewalk to the garden hose. Using the flat of her unsticky left hand, she removed as much of the remaining peanut butter from her inner thigh as she could, then took off her shoes and rinsed off her feet and ankles. She did not want to be barefoot when she confronted the boys, but she had no choice.
Aware she did not have a house key, as Sam had neglected to give her one, Kate leisurely made her way around to the front door. It was locked. She rang the bell. No one answered.
Sure by now she was being watched from somewhere—the boys would not have wanted to miss this!—Kate glanced around behind her and saw nothing. No one in the trees or in the cars. Kate went around to the garage. It, too, was locked up tight as a drum. Kate headed for the back door off the laundry room. It was unlocked. Which meant what? she wondered. Another booby trap?
Determined not to be caught unawares this time, she edged it open. Then waited just outside the doorway. Again, not so much as one breath was heard. “Okay, guys,” she called in a firm but cheerful voice as she gingerly stepped inside. As she did so, a bucket above her upended, pouring at least a quart of white flour onto her head.
Kate sneezed several times, and thought, but couldn’t be sure, she heard a chorus of muffled male giggles. “All right, guys, you’ve made your point,” Kate announced as she dusted the flour from her face.
Heading for the kitchen, she went straight to the drawer beside the sink and brought out a clean dishtowel. Still standing in front of the sink, she reached for the spigot, turned the water on and was promptly drenched from neck to waist by the sprayer hose beside the faucet. Screaming in surprise, Kate jumped backward away from the still-spraying hose on the sink ledge. This time she heard lots of laughter. Kate swiftly moved around to shut off the water.
Okay, this was the place where she was supposed to scream and threaten and lose it, Kate concluded thoughtfully. No doubt that was what all the other housekeepers Sam had employed had done. But not her, Kate thought as she studied the rubber band the boys had wrapped around the handle of the sink sprayer, pressing the lever into an on position and guaranteeing that whomever turned on the water next would be drenched. They might have gotten her four times in a row. But this was one situation where they would definitely not have the last laugh.
Her plan already forming, Kate tiptoed back out of the house and headed for the driveway. Will’s Jeep was gone—he was probably at football practice. But Brad’s car was still there and it was unlocked. Kate lifted the hood and did a little quick handiwork, then dashed around to the side of the house, out of view. Seconds later the front door opened. Stealthy footsteps padded out onto the sidewalk. “Hey! The hood on my car is up!” Brad said.
“And that’s not all!” Riley noted grimly. “She took the distributor cap!”
“That’s it,” Brad vowed passionately, upset to have his social life interrupted yet again. “We’re gonna have to—”
“Gonna have to what?” Kate taunted as she came around the side of the house and gave Brad and Riley a good squirt with the garden hose.
“Show you who’s boss!” Riley shouted, followed with a rebel yell as he and Brad whipped loaded Super Soaker water pistols from their belts, confirming Kate’s guess that their earlier pranks had just been a warmup to their much-anticipated grand finale. Still whooping, they let her have it. Kev and Lewis—who’d been lingering uncertainly on the front porch—jumped out to join the melee.
Grinning, Kate gave back as good as they gave her, even as they all dashed around madly and soaked each other from head to toe. If she and the boys were going to have it out, they might as well do it now. And maybe that was just what these boys needed, a rousing fight with their new sitter. Fortunately for her, she had an endless supply of water—they didn’t.
“Run for the house!” Lewis directed, taking charge as the Super Soaker pistols emptied. “She can’t get us there!”
“Want to bet?” Kate shouted as she merrily gave chase, still spraying them madly all the while. The boys shrieked and howled and stumbled over one another as they scrambled up on the porch, climbing over the railing that edged it in an attempt to get to safety.
“Cowards!” Kate teased as she ran up the front steps and joyously squirted them again. Dashing forward, she put herself between them and the front door. Still aiming the hose at the boys, she effectively kept them from getting inside. And that was when she heard the powerful motor of Sam’s limo pulling into the driveway.
THAT QUICKLY, everyone froze in mid-mischief, the laughter dying in their throats, the smiles fading from their faces. Kate lowered the hose as Sam stepped out of the rear of the vehicle. Ever so casually, he leaned back toward the car, and said something to his driver through the open window. The driver nodded, backed out of the drive, and drove away, while Sam started for them, his lips set, his eyes hard.
“Oh, man, are we in for it now,” Brad groaned, wiping his forearm across his drenched brow.
And that, Kate thought glumly, water dripping down her face as she watched Sam coolly and methodically close the distance between them, just about summed it up. Suddenly she felt as if she’d been transported back to the Old West and it was high noon in the middle of the street. She was the cowboy—or girl—in the white hat that everyone was relying on to get them out of the mess they were in. Sam was the much-feared gunslinger.
A muscle working in his jaw, Sam stopped just short of her.
Kate smiled with as much charm as she could muster and, garden hose still in hand, stepped off the front porch. The boys may have started this, but the fact they’d been caught whooping it up red-handed was just as much her fault as theirs. “So, Sam,” she said cheerfully, as if such a riot as this were to be commended instead of denigrated. “What brings you home this early?”
“Instinct,” Sam retorted grimly. “I had a feeling something might happen.” His eyes ruthlessly swept the group before returning to Kate’s. “Just what in blazes is going on here?” he demanded furiously.
The boys exchanged uneasy glances, and much to Kate’s surprise, couldn’t seem to wait to leap to her defense. “We were just horsing around, Dad,” they claimed, surprising Sam, too.
Seeing no point in involving Sam in what was essentially a power struggle between her and the boys, Kate inserted glibly, “And now that we’re finished—”
“Boys. Inside. Now!” Sam commanded. Hands braced on his waist, he regarded them all sternly. “Unless I miss my guess you have a lot to undo in there.”
Uh-oh. Work fast, guys, Kate thought.
She turned to go, too. Maybe if she lent a hand, things wouldn’t look so bad.
Unfortunately, Sam moved with her, blocking her way. “Oh, no, you don’t.”
Aw, heck.
His hand curved over her shoulder, grabbing a fistful of drenched pale blue cotton. “I want to talk to you.”
SAM WAITED UNTIL THE BOYS had all gone inside before he continued. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Having a little fun?” Kate said cheekily. Unfortunately, the irony in her voice was lost on him.
“This was precisely the kind of behavior I had hoped to avoid by having you stay here.”
Abruptly aware her shirt was clinging damply to her breasts in a way that was much too revealing, Kate grabbed a handful of fabric and pulled it away from her body. “If you don’t mind, Sam, I’d like to change clothes…” Maybe by the time she was dry, she’d have figured out how to handle him.
He remained much too close to her. “I do mind,” he said, his brown eyes boring into hers. “What possessed you to get down to their level?”
Kate decided to put some distance between them and moved away from him to replace the distributor cap on Brad’s Mustang. “Maybe because I wanted to pass initiation,” she said over her shoulder. She paused long enough to see his eyes soften, his posture relax. “You don’t look surprised,” she said as she replaced the hose at the side of the house.
Sam sighed, looking no less unhappy but a little less fierce as he told her, “They’ve put everyone who’s worked for me through some kind of test, though never to this extent.” His glance traveling over her from head to toe, he continued to regard her with disapproval.
Kate noticed the long smear of peanut butter on her inner thigh, and did her best to wipe it off. “It’s a good thing I had so much experience at summer camp, then, isn’t it?”
“Only one problem with that, Kate,” he said, his voice a husky mix of frustration and fury. “I don’t want my home turned into a summer camp.”
“News flash, Sam,” Kate countered, unable to resist tweaking him just a little. “It already is one. But that can change. This place can be a home again instead of a battleground if you’ll just give me a chance to really get to know you and your boys.” Once she had their trust, they could move to tackle the family’s grief. Either one by one or all together.
Sam frowned and, obviously curious to see what other damage had been done, started to walk toward the back of the house. “I don’t know what good socializing will do if you can’t make them mind you when I’m not around.”
“Meaning what?” It was all Kate could do to repress a sigh of exasperation as she followed him, simultaneously doing her best to keep him out of harm’s way and any other booby traps she had yet to discover. “You’d prefer to have them cared for by someone who knows nothing about them?”
Sam looked frustrated and didn’t answer. Abruptly he spotted the peanut butter smeared on the ledge beneath her open bedroom window, frowned and started toward it. “What the heck?”
“Sam, don’t go there,” Kate warned, putting up a hand.
Too late. A swearing Sam had already stepped into the syrup-drenched ivy. Before he could extricate himself, Brad, Riley and Lewis came filing out the back of the house.
“Uh, sorry about that, Dad,” Brad said. “That trap was meant for Kate.”
Sam frowned. “I thought I told you boys to clean up.”
Riley interrupted, “First we want to tell you something, Dad.”
“Since you won’t let us stay unsupervised the rest of the summer…” Brad hedged.
“You’re darn right, I won’t.” Sam scowled. “Especially after today.”
Lewis shot a pleading look at Sam. “We want Kate to stay.”
Sam stared at his boys as Kev came out to stand beside his brothers. “After all this,” Sam repeated in disbelief, dragging a hand through his rumpled hair, “you decide you like Kate?”
Riley and Brad cringed comically. “I wouldn’t exactly go that far, but we…we, uh, could probably get along if we had to,” Brad allowed quite specifically. “And we sorta do, don’t we, Kate?”
Knowing this was as much of either a surrender or a mea culpa they were likely to give, Kate said amiably, “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you guys.”
Sam’s face hardened. “The question is why would Kate want to stay after the way you boys have behaved this morning? Why would anyone?”
“Oh, lighten up, Sam,” Kate interjected breezily. Hands on her hips, she regarded the boys with a victorious smile. They’d made real progress here this morning. The boys had vented a considerable amount of emotion. They probably all felt better, even if they had little understanding as to why. But they’d get to that eventually. In the meantime they had learned Kate was not going to abandon them or Sam. “They’re not going to do it again,” Kate said.
Sam pivoted to face Kate. He looked at her as if she hadn’t a brain in her head. “How do you figure that?”
“Because we reached an understanding this morning, didn’t we, boys?” Kate said as the attention of all four boys riveted back to her. They knew now that she could and would give back as good as she got.
The boys nodded sheepishly at Kate.
“Fine,” Sam sighed, apparently realizing all over again what few choices he had at the moment. “But I’m warning all of you. If this or anything even remotely like it happens again, you’re all going to have me to deal with.”
AS SOON AS SHE and the boys got cleaned up, Kate called a meeting. They met at the kitchen table, around glasses of orange juice and milk and cereal and cinnamon toast. As they finished eating, Kate handed out pencils and pieces of paper. “Okay, I want you each to write down your five favorite meals.”
Once again she met with resistance from Brad. “Why? You’re not even going to be here all that long.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Kate replied practically. “If we can develop a rotating menu that makes you all reasonably happy, then whoever your dad hires can just continue using the system that I am going to set up for all of you.”
They regarded her suspiciously. No one wrote anything down but Lewis, who neatly penciled in his name across the top of his paper. Kevin, who was too young to know how to write, drew pictures on his paper.
“Look, let’s face it…” Kate paused, stared each of the boys straight in the eye, and continued gently, “No one can take your mom’s place in your lives. No one should even try. Because what you and your mom had was very special.” At that, the guys all nodded their agreement. “It’s just not ever going to be duplicated.” Kate paused to give them an understanding look. “But does that mean no one can ever come in and do your laundry or cook you a meal again? I don’t think so.”
As they thought about a life without Ellie, their faces could have been carved in stone. Their hearts, their feelings, were every bit as fiercely guarded and locked away as Sam’s. Kate just couldn’t let them stay that way. She had to find a way to get through to them, if only because she knew it was what Ellie would want. “What do you think your mom would want for you guys now?” Kate asked quietly. “Do you think she would want you to be living like this…chasing one housekeeper off after another? Or would she have figured that if she weren’t around your dad would have immediately hired someone who would come in and do the kinds of things that needed to be done to keep a household running smoothly?”
“She would have wanted Dad to hire someone,” Lewis said.
“Would she have expected you to be nice to whomever your dad hired?” she asked, the look she gave them reminding them that she had known Ellie, too.
They all hung their heads in shame. “She would’ve expected us to be nice,” Riley admitted grudgingly as he glowered at Kate. “But she never made us do chores.”
Kate blinked in surprise. “Never?”
Lewis pushed his glasses up. “Mom did everything.” All the boys nodded their heads in agreement. Bolstered, he continued speaking for the group. “She said that was her job. Ours was schoolwork and sports and stuff like that.”
Kate didn’t think Ellie had done her kids any favors by letting them off the hook that way, but that was neither here nor there, given the circumstances and the out-of-control way the kids had been living for months now. Refusing to back down in her quest to get the boys to take more personal responsibility for the family’s living environment, Kate said, “Did she let you throw your stuff all over the place?”
Guilty flushes all around. Which was, as it turned out, all the answer Kate needed.
“So in other words,” she continued, “when your mom was around, the house was never one huge mess.”
Lewis sighed. “She made us take all our stuff to our rooms and keep our rooms neat, otherwise she’d come in and straighten up for us.”
Kate could tell from the way he said it and the looks on their faces that none of the boys had liked having Ellie straighten their rooms her way, going through their things when they weren’t around. Which in turn would have been powerful motivation for the kids to keep their rooms straightened on their own. “And after she died?” Kate asked curiously.
Shrugs all around. Brad said, “Dad didn’t care if we cleaned ’em up or not.”
“I like mine messy,” Kevin piped up abruptly, wanting to be noticed, too. Everyone turned to him in surprise. Pleased Sam’s youngest had decided to participate more actively, Kate smiled at him. “Okay, so maybe there should be some compromise on that score now that you guys are helping to make and enforce the rules around here,” she allowed.
“Like what?” Riley challenged.
Knowing all the while that no team or family could thrive without a certain amount of discipline, organization and group effort, Kate said, “Like your rooms can be as messy as you want as long as they’re not a health hazard, as long as you keep the main areas of the house fairly neat. And that means everyone picks up after themselves. You dirty a glass, you put it in the dishwasher. You drop a box of cereal on the floor, you clean it up.”
“And if we don’t agree to that?” Brad asked suavely.
Kate shrugged. “Then I get out the Job Jar again and we all pick chores and we end up picking up after ourselves and each other, anyway. It’s up to you.” She regarded them steadily. “What do you want to do?”
It didn’t take them long to decide. “Clean up after ourselves as we go,” Brad sighed.
“Okay. Next is a sign-in, sign-out sheet.” Kate got up and moved to the bulletin board beside the telephone. “I’m going to put this paper on the bulletin board, and if you’re going somewhere, I want you to put down where you can be reached, when you left, and when you’ll be home.”
Lewis pushed his glasses up. Unlike Brad and Riley, he looked more puzzled than annoyed. “Why do we have to do that?”
“So your dad and I can keep track of you more easily.”
Brad and Riley exchanged aggrieved glances. “Do we still have to ask permission if we want to go somewhere?” Brad asked.
Kate nodded firmly. “Yes.” She didn’t want to deny them any request that was reasonable, but she wanted them to go through the procedure, to get used to behaving as one caring, cohesive unit again. And part of that was learning to care for and look out for each other instead of it being an every-person-for-himself household.
“Even Will?” Riley asked.
“Even Will,” Kate said.
“Well, have fun telling him when he gets home from football practice,” Brad said. “’Cause he is not going to like these new rules.”
“You let me worry about Will,” Kate said, even though she knew they were right.
Lewis studied her, his head tilted slightly to the side. “Is this therapy?”
“No.” Kate grinned, knowing therapy was almost easy, compared to trying to bring order back into Sam McCabe’s out-of-control household. “It’s just plain common sense that you guys should be able to use to your advantage long after I’m out of here.”
Sam came into the kitchen. From the look on his face, Kate had the feeling he’d been standing there listening to all of them for quite a while. Was it her imagination or was he just a little less disapproving of her than he had been earlier?
“Want to join us?” she asked cheerfully. “We’re in the process of setting up some ground rules. And I’m also taking dinner menu requests. Speak now or forever hold your peace.”
Sam’s body language and expression were both aloof. “I just want some coffee.” He went over and poured himself a cup
As the boys regarded Sam, the mood in the room went from borderline cooperative to tense and unhappy. Although no one said anything, Kate could feel the boys silently willing Sam to participate, to help them become more of a family again, but he was either not attuned to their emotions or unable to fulfill their needs in that respect. But that didn’t mean she had to give up. Again, Kate tried to engage Sam in what was going on with the family, on any level she could. “Lewis and Kevin and I are going to the grocery,” she told Sam pleasantly. “Do you want us to pick you up anything there?”
Sam opened his billfold and pulled out several hundred dollars in cash. “Whatever you get will be fine,” he said and, coffee in hand, exited the room.