Dream a Little Dream (Chicago Stars, #4)(188)

“Tell me how you met Cherry.”

Her name again. His anger evaporated, and he felt an urgent need to talk about her, to make her real again. Still, it took him a while to manage the words. “A Sunday-school picnic.”

He grunted as Rachel’s sharp elbow dug into his stomach. Automatically lifting his arm, he opened his eyes.

She’d propped herself comfortably on his chest as if he were a lounge chair, and instead of giving him one of those pity-filled looks he’d grown accustomed to, she was smiling. “You were kids! Teenagers?”

“Not even. We were eleven, and she’d just moved to Salvation.” He shifted into a half-sitting position, rearranging her elbow at the same time so it wasn’t aimed directly at his diaphragm. “I was running around, not watching where I was going, and I spilled a glass of purple Kool-Aid on her.”


“I’ll bet she wasn’t happy about that.”

“She did the damnedest thing. She looked up at me and smiled and said, ‘I know you’re sorry.’ Just like that. ‘I know you’re sorry.’ ”

Rachel laughed. “She sounds like a pushover.”

He found himself laughing back. “She was. She always thought the best of people, and I can’t tell you how many times that got her into trouble.”

He lay back in the grassy shade of the giant movie screen, but this time he let the happy memories in. One after another, they came back to him.

A bee droned nearby. Crickets sawed away. Rachel’s sun-scented hair blew across his lips.

His eyes grew heavy. He slept.



The next evening Rachel and Edward helped Kristy unpack. Kristy’s new one-bedroom condo was small and charming, with a tiny patio and a compact kitchen complete with a skylight. The walls sparkled with fresh white paint and everything smelled new.

Her furniture had arrived from storage that day. It was mostly made up of the family pieces Kristy’s parents hadn’t wanted when they’d moved to Florida, and now Kristy was regarding all of it with displeasure.

Keeping her voice low, so no one but Rachel could hear, she said, “I know I don’t have the money to replace this stuff, but it doesn’t . . . I don’t know. It doesn’t fit me anymore.” She gave a self-deprecating laugh. “Listen to me. Five days ago I got my hair cut and bought some new clothes. Now I think I’m a different person. I’m probably just feeling guilty about not moving to Florida like they want.”

“This past week has been hard on you.” Rachel placed the last of the glasses on a cupboard shelf that had already been lined with blue-and-lavender shelf paper. “And don’t be depressed about the furniture. They’re basic pieces. You can brighten them up with pillows, hang some museum posters. It’ll look terrific when you’re done.”

“I suppose.”

Edward strutted out of the bedroom. “We need a Phillips ’crewdriver to fix the bed. You got one?”

Kristy walked over to her small, neatly arranged tool kit, which sat open on the white counter that divided the galley kitchen from the condo’s living area. “Try this.”

With an air of self-importance that made Rachel smile, Edward took the screwdriver and swaggered off to join Ethan in the bedroom. Ethan Bonner might be at the top of Kristy’s grudge list right now, but his generosity toward Edward made it hard for Rachel to hold on to her dislike. This was the first time her son had been given a chance to do real work with an adult male, and he was reveling in it.

Kristy glared toward the bedroom and hissed under her breath, “Ethan was awful Thursday night at the Mountaineer, but he’s been acting as if nothing happened.”

“I suspect he’s having as hard a time forgetting about it as you are.”

“Ha.”

Rachel smiled and hugged her disgruntled friend. Tonight Kristy wore a bright-red T-shirt tucked into a pair of brand-new jeans. Her makeup had worn off, and she’d traded in her gold sandals for a pair of worn sneakers, so there was nothing overtly sexual about her dress, but Rachel had noticed the way Ethan’s eyes had lingered on her anyway.

“I’ve wasted all these years mooning over an immature hypocrite, but I’m not doing it any longer!”

If Kristy got much louder, Ethan would hear her, but Rachel had interfered enough, and she didn’t say anything.

“I saved most of my money while I was living at home, so I’ve got enough to go back to school. I only need a few classes to finish up my degree in early-childhood education, and I shouldn’t have any trouble getting a job as a teacher’s aide to help out with my mortgage payments until I’m finished.”

“That’s wonderful.”

“I wish I’d done this years ago.”

“Maybe you weren’t ready until now.”

“I guess.” Kristy gave her a wistful smile. “It’s nice, you know. For the first time in my life, I don’t feel invisible.”

Rachel suspected that came more from Kristy’s mind-set than her cosmetic changes, but she kept her opinion to herself.

Ethan appeared from the back bedroom with Edward at his side. “All done. Why don’t Edward and I get started on that bookcase?”

“Thanks, but I’m not ready to put it up yet.” Kristy spoke with a brusqueness that bordered on rudeness.