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“Stone, remember?” Autumn looked up at her with child-like innocence in her gaze, everything so unassuming and so happy. Rosalie wished she could feel like that again. She wanted to believe in the goodness in the world again, and she told herself she had tochooseto see the positive.
James had left, yes.It was twenty-one months ago, she thought, and she pasted a smile on her face too. “Stone, that’s right,” she said. Autumn had been naming things what they were since she was old enough to talk, and Rosalie should’ve remembered.
Had Lee not stopped by her office, she would have. “Listen, honey,” she said, crouching down in her heels. “Mommy has to go out again tonight. Tess said you could come to her house and play with Baylor. Doesn’t that sound fun?”
Autumn looked at her with hope and wonder in her eyes. “Can I wear my penguin costume?”
Rosalie grinned at her daughter. “I don’t see why not.”
Autumn whooped and ran toward the house. “I’m going to go change right now!”
Rosalie let her go, but she sighed as she stood. She kicked off the offending heels, having enough of them for one day. She’d put all the proper pieces together again tomorrow, even though it was Friday, and she’d go into the office where she worked alone.
She was so tired of being alone. She didn’t want to be the only one in charge of Autumn, or the house, the yard, Thumper, the car, all of it. The weight of that responsibility crushed her, and she wished James had not left Sweet Water Falls.
At the same time, she couldn’t help thinking that if he hadn’t, she wouldn’t be as ready or as excited to go out with Lee Cooper as she was.
With a jolt, she turned back to the house. She didn’t have time to stand around in the yard and contemplate her life. She had a hot date with a handsome cowboy to get ready for.
* * *
“I don’t know how late,”Rosalie said, giving her friend and neighbor a smile. “I brought her pajamas, but she can honestly just stay in the costume.” She smiled at her daughter, who’d run right over to Tess’s five-year-old, Baylor. He wore a superhero costume, and no one in the house seemed to think adding a penguin to the mix was a problem.
Gratitude for that, for Tess always saying yes whenever Rosalie asked her to babysit Autumn, and for all she had swept through her.
“Who are you going out with?” Tess asked.
Rosalie swallowed, not sure why she didn’t want to say Lee’s name. At the same time, she knew exactly why. Tess was a stay-at-home mom who got together with a lot of other stay-at-home moms. They talked. They fueled the rumor mill in a small town like Sweet Water Falls, and she didn’t want to be the subject of it.
“Uh, can I tell you after? Maybe it’ll be terrible.” She smiled as if she really expected the forthcoming date to be simply awful. Besides, all Tess had to do was stand at her front window and watch to see who pulled into Rosalie’s driveway in only ten minutes. Then she’d know. Then the whole town would know.
Panic poured through Rosalie. She needed to cancel this date. At the very least, she needed to call Lee and tell him she’d meet him somewhere. Anywhere but her front porch.
Tess gave her a sympathetic smile. “Sure, hon. You tell me after.” A crash sounded in the kitchen, and Tess’s attention got diverted in that direction. “Benji!” she yelled, already hurrying toward the white cloud of flour as it lifted high enough to be seen over the countertop. “I told you to stay out of that flour!”
Rosalie took that as her cue to leave, and she quickly slipped out the front door while Autumn was playing happily with her best friend. She’d already kissed her, as well as given her explicit instructions to listen to Tess and her husband Frank, and to go to bed on time. They had to be at the office in the morning, and if she didn’t go to bed on time, she couldn’t come with her.
Autumn loved coming to the office with Rosalie, so she didn’t expect any problems. She crossed the lawn between their two houses and hurried inside. She still had to feed Thumper, who stomped his foot at her angrily for leaving for five minutes.
“I know, bud,” she said to him. “Your turn. I’ll leave the light on for you tonight. Don’t worry.” The rabbit didn’t like being left home alone, and certainly not in the dark. He refused to go in a cage, and Rosalie had often wanted to install a video camera so she could see what the bunny did in her absence. He wasn’t a killer rabbit or anything, and he didn’t chew shoes or furniture. She honestly thought he probably hippity-hopped into Autumn’s room and took a nap on her bean bag.
She opened the fridge, sure she had some carrots and celery for the rabbit. As she opened the produce drawer, she knew there wasn’t anything inside. “What happened?” she asked. She’d hurried inside after Autumn and found the girl wrestling with her penguin costume. Charity had already gone.
Once her daughter was ready, Rosalie had taken her into her bedroom and put a movie on for her, and Autumn had snuggled into her bed to watch it while Rosalie proceeded to try on several different combinations of clothing. This jacket with those jeans? These slacks with that blouse?
In the end, she’d settled on an animal print faux wrap-around dress that showed her wild side. Rosalie didn’t really have one of those, but she sure did like a fake leopard print, especially when the spots came in a deep navy blue and not black.
She hadn’t eaten, but she’d fed Autumn a peanut butter and honey sandwich and a cut-up apple. She stepped back from the fridge and looked in the sink, finding the remains of a veggie bowl there. “Did you already get fed?” she asked the rabbit.
He stomped quite vehemently that he had not. So Autumn had had the baby carrots with ranch, as was now drying in the sink. Rosalie sighed, but she couldn’t be angry with Charity or Autumn for eating vegetables.
She simply didn’t have anything to feed Thumper, and she couldn’t just leave him. “I’ll see what I have in the pantry,” she said, yanking open the door at the same time the doorbell rang.
Thumper stomped three times in a row in quick succession, almost like he was the one standing on the front porch knocking. Rosalie turned that way, her mind clearing of every other thought.
Lee was here.
An alarm on her phone chimed, and sure enough, the hour had struck six-thirty. She hurried toward the door, her first inclination to remove the gate so he could come in. At the very least, she wouldn’t have to step over the gate in her knee-high skirt. Humiliation filled her at the thought. She really should’ve arranged to meet him somewhere. Everything seemed to be tilting sideways tonight, and if this date went bad, she didn’t want it to be her fault.
