A Family Kind of Gal Read Online Free Page A

“Come on, sweetheart,” Tiffany cajoled her daughter as she picked up broken bits of chalk and stuffed them into the tattered pack.
    â€œI not tired.”
    â€œSure you are.”
    â€œNo, I not!” Christina’s lower lip protruded, and she folded her chubby arms across her chest.
    â€œWell, Bub and Louie are tired, and they’re waiting upstairs in bed for you. It’ll just be for a little while.” She hoisted her daughter into her arms, and Christina, still pouting, didn’t protest.
    Unfortunately J.D. had watched the entire display from the kitchen window. Tiffany wished he’d just go away. She didn’t need any member of the Santini family, especially not J.D., intruding into her life right now—or ever, for that matter. She knew they all thought she hadn’t been good enough for Philip while he was alive, so they could all just go and take the proverbial leap.
    She carried Christina into the back of the house, mouthed, “I’ll be back in a few minutes” to her erstwhile guest, then lugged the tired three-year-old through the hallway and up the stairs to her room.
    This part of the house, aside from the addition of the bathroom, was as it had been for nearly a hundred years, and Christina’s room was a small alcove that overlooked the fruit trees in the backyard. The bedroom next door belonged to Stephen, and Tiffany’s was across the hall. There were two occupied apartments in the basement and a third one—an empty studio—on the top floor. The ground floor of the carriage house that flanked the backyard was rented, while the upper level was, at the moment, standing empty.
    â€œThere you go,” she said, as she tucked Christina under a hand-pieced quilt her grandmother had made. She arranged Bub, a floppy-eared stuffed rabbit missing one eye, and Louie, a black-masked toy raccoon, beside her daughter.
    â€œJust a little while,” Christina insisted.
    â€œThat’s right.” Tiffany leaned over and planted a soft kiss on the little girl’s forehead. Christina, who Tiffany had dubbed the “miracle” baby, had been an unexpected blessing three years ago, long after she and Philip had decided that one child—Stephen—was enough. Philip had two nearly grown children from his previous marriage, and he hadn’t thought it was necessary to “overpopulate the world,” especially when he’d already been “paying a fortune” in child support
    Gazing down at her daughter now, Tiffany was thankful that God had seen otherwise, and that despite the use of birth control and Philip’s lack of interest, Christina had been conceived. “Destiny,” she’d told her husband upon learning the news.
    â€œOr a curse,” Philip had replied with a scowl. “How many kids do you think I can afford?”
    â€œIt’s just one more.”
    â€œThat you planned,” he’d stated flatly, insisting that she’d intentionally tricked him by not using her diaphragm. The fight had simmered for days, with Philip brooding and spending more time at the office. Philip had slept in the den for nearly two weeks, acting as if she wasn’t even in the same house with him until she’d confronted him and flown into a rage.
    â€œI want this baby!” she’d told him. “Stephen needs a sister or brother.”
    â€œHe’s got one of each.”
    â€œHalf siblings who don’t live with him.” She’d advanced upon him as he’d sat in his chair, holding the newspaper firmly in white-knuckled fists, his jaw set, his nostrils flared in a seething, silent rage. “I didn’t plan to have this baby, but now that it’s coming, I consider it a gift and you should, too.”
    â€œI’m too old to be a father again.”
    â€œBut I’m not too old to be a mother. It’ll be all right,” she’d said, aching inside. She wanted this