Castles in the Sand Read Online Free Page A

she married, then the matter of her having a baby within a few months wouldn’t matter as much. People would not see us as parental failures .
    Susan’s entire body felt smothered with heat. She and Drake had not voiced the explanation, but there it was.
    “Kenzie has only called once since she told us on New Year’s Day. She didn’t leave a number. I don’t know who her local friends are anymore…So I want to call the boy’s parents to find out what they know.”
    “Of course you do.” Pure compassion. Understanding. Nonjudgmental. “How about right now?”
    She stared at him.
    He nodded. “And if you talk to an answering machine, leave my number.” He gestured toward his house. “The back door’s open.”

Three
    In her rush to answer the ringing telephone, Pepper Carlucci smashed a toe against a pint-sized pickup truck and wondered, not for the first time, why it was at the age of forty-five she had yet another toddler in the house?
    “Ow.” She punched the phone’s “on” button. “Ow, ow. Excuse me. Hello?”
    “Uh, hello. This…this is…”
    Before the woman finished the sentence, Pepper intuited who she was. Susan Starr . Kenzie’s mother. The other grandma. For more than two months Pepper had both dreaded and hoped that she would call.
    “Susan Starr.”
    “Yes, hello.” She tilted the phone away from her mouth and inhaled deeply. Sinking onto the couch, she blew out the breath, pulled her foot up on the cushion, and repositioned the phone. “This is Pepper Carlucci. Aidan’s mom.” She rubbed her big toe.
    “Hi.”
    The silence stretched, but Pepper vowed not to break it. She wasn’t the one who had called. She wasn’t the one who had banished her child from home.
    Now that was a crummy attitude. Evidently she was still a tad bit angry about things.
    “Um.” Susan Starr’s voice was barely a decibel above a breath. “I don’t know where to be—” A sob cut her off.
    Pepper sighed. “Kenzie is fine.”
    “Oh, thank God.”
    Well, thank Him and her husband, Mick, and Aidan and herself. Why not throw in the other five kids too? They all helped. They all loved Kenzie as though she were family.
    “Is she there?”
    “No.” Pepper ran her fingers through her short hair. “But she’s fine.”
    “Do you know where she’s staying?”
    Duh . The woman was a fruitcake right out of the fifties. Where would the girl be staying except with the guy?
    Oh, Lord! Forgive that . “She’s living with Aidan.”
    There was a rustling noise, like paper being rubbed between a nose and the phone’s mouthpiece. “Um. May I have the phone number?”
    “Susan, look, I’m really sorry, but she asked me not to give it to you. She said she will call you when she’s ready. She’s just hurting right now.” For good reason .
    The silence lasted a long moment. “How is she? With the pregnancy?”
    “The morning sickness has subsided.” Pepper deliberately closed her mouth to prevent herself from revealing more. This was Kenzie’s battle.
    Except for an immature little stubborn streak, her semi-daughter-in-law was a beautiful girl, inside and out. Courageous. A go-getter. One week back in the country she had taken a job as waitress in a coffee shop—make that barista —and seen a doctor. And her voice! An angel’s. Pepper could not have chosen a better partner for her eldest son. God indeed had heard and answered her prayers. Well, not the pregnancy before marriage part, but then life never did fit into her version of perfect.
    Susan said, “Will you give her a message, please? Tell her I’m at the beach house this week. Alone. Till Friday. But there’s no phone here.”
    “Sure.” The Starrs had a beach house? La-di-da. How much did superchurch pastors make, anyway?
    “Mrs. Carlucci, may I ask you something?”
    The woman’s hesitant manner was getting on Pepper’s nerves. “Shoot.”
    “Are you okay with this?”
    “With what?” She knew with what, of course, but she was