She started talking, and Harper could hardly believe what she was hearing. “Brook’s father cheated on me, but the real reason I left him was because of his terrible temper. He knocked me around a couple of times, but then one night he slapped Brook. She hadn’t done a thing wrong, but he was furious with me because he thought I’d looked at another man. I kicked him out. She and I moved, and we’ve never seen him since. So, darlin’ girl, I’ve not always been honest, and I apologize for that.”

Brook rushed to her mother’s side, dropped down on her knees, and put her head in Dana’s lap. “You might not have been totally honest, but it was to protect me—at least mostly. And I’ve known that you weren’t married to my daddy for years. I found the birth certificate a long time ago. I promise I’ll work harder on my temper, because I sure wouldn’t ever want to get angry enough to hit one of my kids.”

“Then I think two weeks without your cell phone is punishment enough for not controlling that temper.” Dana swiped a hand across her cheek. “And just between us and your two aunts, thank God I paid for those martial arts lessons.”

Harper’s voice came out high and squeaky when she said, “Good Lord! I thought you were perfect, and now you tell us this.”

“Well, I thought you two were princesses and I was the big old black sheep in the family,” Dana shot back.

“Wow!” Tawny gasped. “Just plain old wow! How could you ever trust a man again after that? And why didn’t you marry him?”

“He said that his first marriage taught him a lesson. I thought he’d change his mind when Brook was born. He didn’t,” Dana answered.

“I’d sure like to know where he lives right now, because I would just love to use my martial arts training on him,” Tawny said.

“You can fight?” Brook asked.

“Kickboxing,” Tawny answered. “Took three classes of it in college for my phys-ed requirement. Okay, now that Dana has bared her soul, I’m going to get back to my cabin and do some book work before I go to bed. And Harper here has company waiting for her in the form of a tall, dark-haired man she’s been in love with for ten years.”

“I have not! That was lust and this is friendship,” Harper argued.

“Uh-huh,” Tawny laughed.

“I love the whole bunch of you,” Brook said. “And thanks for being here for me. Mama, let’s have a beer to celebrate all this being out in the open.”

“You can have a beer when you are forty and not a day before,” Dana declared.

Harper waved as she crossed the floor and hurried back to her cabin. She found Wyatt propped up in bed, watching one of the two television channels. She kicked the door shut with her heel, tossed her flip-flops in a corner, and curled up beside him.

“You aren’t going to believe this,” she said.

He hit a button on the remote to turn off the TV. “I’m all ears, darlin’.”

Zed leaned back in the recliner that Monday evening, sipped on a glass of lemonade, and told Annie all about the incident with Brook. “I so wish you could’ve been here, and no, I’m not exaggeratin’ one bit of it. She really did whip the snot out of that kid, and he finally got his comeuppance for what happened. I intend to tell Flora about it when she gets settled and calls me. But right now I’m rememberin’ a time when Marvin Hopper made fun of me at school because I didn’t have good shoes and my overalls had patches,” he said with a deep chuckle. He finished off the last of the lemonade and set the glass on the table between the recliners. “She whipped on that boy just like you did Marvin. I felt bad that you fought my battle that day. I should’ve taken care of it, but then it didn’t seem like such a big deal. My overalls did have patches and there were holes in the soles of my shoes. Only time I fought was with Seamus when he got drunk and said that you couldn’t cook worth a damn. Did I ever tell you about that?”

Leaning his head back, he shut his eyes and listened intently, then smiled. “I know, darlin’. You really didn’t like to cook, and you didn’t have to. My mama made sure there was good food every day in the café and then I took over the job. But Seamus was disrespectin’ you when he said that, and he had to pay for it. Did you know that he fired me because of that?”

He listened awhile longer. “So you did know. I’d bet my right lung, sorry as it is these days, that you’re the reason that he hired me back the next day and said he’d never talk ugly about you again.”

Finally, he opened his eyes. “Well, I guess you’re done talkin’ for tonight, so I’ll go on to bed. On a final note, I think we’re beginnin’ to see more and more progress on our girls actin’ like family should.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Tawny stood under the shower for several minutes, letting the cool water take away the sweat and grime of working in the laundry and cleaning rooms. If someone had tried to convince her that she would like the physical work more than sitting at a desk all day, she would have declared them insane. But it was the truth. She enjoyed the instant gratification of walking into a messy cabin and leaving it spick-and-span, smelling clean and with a bed made so tight that quarters could bounce on the chenille spread.

Besides, she got to work with Brook, who had a knack for making the simplest thing that happened at her school into a comedy act. Tawny hoped that when Brook got into high school the next year she enrolled in some drama classes and learned how to stand on a stage without fear. Not that Brook would be afraid of anything, but the classes would help her tremendously if she ever did get into comedy.