Murder Bone by Bone

Author:Lora Roberts [Roberts, Lora]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery
Publisher: Belgrave House
Published: 1997-04-23T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

“Hi, honey, I’m home.”

The boys glanced away briefly from “Square One,” waved at Drake, and went back to viewing. Moira didn’t even look up from the noodles she was picking off her high chair tray.

I turned from the stove and smiled at Drake. “Who are you? Ward Cleaver?”

“I’ve always had that ambition.” He gave me a sitcom-dad kiss on the forehead. “Hi, June.”

“Not in front of the children, Ward.” I fended off his puckered lips. “You’ll get drool in the noodles.”

“Noodles? June always had pot roast for her man."

“That was then, this is now.” I whacked him with the wooden spoon. “Besides, you’re not my man.”

“We’ll see about that.” Before I could respond, he took the spoon out of my hand and stirred the contents of the pot. "This looks like fettuccine Alfredo.”

I took the spoon back. “Why don’t you dress the salad? We’re about ready.”

“Let me put down my stuff.” He disappeared into Bridget and Emery's bedroom—the room I was using—and came back without his shabby tweed jacket and the bulging briefcase that went back and forth to his office with him.

I tipped the fettuccine into a bowl, shook the green beans out of their pan, and turned off the oven on the garlic bread. It had been a strain to get so many dishes ready at the same time. I generally have a baked potato or rice along with steamed veggies or a big salad in the evenings. Never wash more than one pot or one dish is my motto.

I stuck my head into the living room to tell the boys that dinner was ready. “Square One” was just ending in a lavish production number. “Nine, nine, nine,” sang the perky actors. “That magic number nine.”

Drake was putting pieces of cucumber on Moira’s tray when I turned back into the kitchen. I started to tell him not to bother, since she wouldn’t eat it, but she confounded me by smiling sweetly at Drake and crunching down on a slice.

“You can sit next to her,” I said, arranging the garlic bread in a basket. “She likes you.”

“She likes you, too,” he assured me.

“Really?” I waved a small piece of garlic bread in the air to cool it, then put it on Moira’s tray. With a disdainful motion of her small hand, she pushed it off the edge. Barker, who’d already learned to lurk beneath the high chair, snapped it up, crunching with gusto. After this child-tending gig was over, I would have big trouble getting him back on his dog food only diet.

“You must have alienated her somehow.” Drake accepted the seat beside the high chair. The boys surged into their chairs, and I sat at the head of the table with an unaccustomed feeling of hostessy accomplishment.

I didn’t sit long, though. Many times when I’d been at the Montrose house for dinner, I’d seen Bridget hop up and circle the table, dishing out food onto her children’s plates, and wondered why she didn’t just let them wait on themselves.

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