“He is.”
“He’s not my daddy though.”
“No, sweetie. He’s not.”
In the front room, very faintly, Maren heard a sharp intake of breath.
Juni nodded gravely, satisfied with her own clarity on this point.
Maren tied off the thread and sat the Blue Fairy up on the dishtowel like she’d just woken up from a long sleep.
“There,” Maren said. “Good as new.”
“Better.” Juni picked her up and gave her a careful hug. “She says she likes the new beans. They’re magic.”
Maren grinned. At the same time, her stomach clenched.
It’s going to take magic beans to get us back home.
Bedtime was easy,too.
Maren tucked Juni in with the Blue Fairy on one side of her pillow and a newly re-stuffed Mr. Kibble on the other side. Snoopy went at the foot of the bed where Juni said he liked to “guard.”
Maren pulled out the Blue Fairy Book.
Juni’s face lit up. “I forgot you brought it.”
“I’m not surprised. Which story do you want?”
“The one Mom liked best.”
Maren closed her eyes for a second.
“Cinderella, then.”
She told the story of a beautiful girl who had lost everything, but still captured the heart of a prince. By the time Cinderella lost her slipper, Juni was already asleep and breathing slow, even breaths.
Maren kept reading the story anyway, very softly, to herself as much as Juni, until the prince found Cinderella and everything that had been wrong was made right.
Then she sat there for a minute, thinking about their home.
She kissed Juni’s forehead, smoothed her hair, and stood up carefully. She left the door open a crack. She paused in the hallway. Through the doorway to the front room, she could see Colin in the chair by the front window. His back was to her, but his head was angled slightly— the way he did when he was listening for something..
She had no idea how long he’d been listening.
Maren went down the hall to her own room without saying anything and closed the door. She stood in the dark with her hand on the doorknob, heart pounding.
Stop it.
She let go of the doorknob and got ready for bed.
NINE
Maren wasin one of the bedrooms, tucked into an extremely comfortable bed. Really, more of a marshmallow than a mattress, and the perfect down comforter, and fluffy pillows. Juni was asleep in an almost identical bed in the bedroom closest to the living room.
The couch in the front room was long enough for a tall man to stretch out without scrunching up, comfortable enough to get some sleep, but not so comfortable he’d sleep deeply. That was the opposite of the beds by design.
Colin lay on his back and stared at the ceiling. He should have been out by now. He’d done gate duty, a full briefing, carried bags, swept the perimeter twice, and kept his professional distance while a gorgeous woman talked to his partner and a preschooler announced she was saving him a brownie.
