A Family To Share. Arlene James

      Chapter Four

      “Baby, don’t,” Kendal pleaded, trying to pry Larissa’s arms from around the day care teacher’s neck.

      His daughter hadn’t been happy for a single moment in his company since she’d awakened after Connie Wheeler had belted her into her car seat the day before. Other times, he’d been able to distract her with music or books or food, but since yesterday, she’d howled every moment that she was awake and in his presence. He tried not to take it personally—he really did—but it was hard not to when his own daughter gave every sign of hating him.

      Maybe I should give her up to her grandparents, he thought again, but everything in him rebelled against the idea. She was his daughter. He loved her and wanted her with him.

      Besides, Laura’s parents were cold, stiff people who, in his opinion, had scarred his late wife emotionally. He didn’t want them doing the same thing to his daughter.

      He supposed that his father and stepmother would take Larissa if he asked, but since his father’s retirement, they had become passionate about traveling. He had never been comfortable asking Louise for anything anyway.

      He had been fourteen when his father married Louise. She had two daughters older than him and neither had ever paid him much attention. Louise had always been pleasant, and Kendal had long ago accepted that she made his father happy, but he could never think of her as his mother.

      Exasperated by the whole situation, he momentarily stopped trying to take his daughter into his arms. Larissa hung on to Miss Annette like a leech, but she stopped howling when he stopped trying to take her from the teacher.

      He shoved a hand through his unruly hair. The woman was a substitute, for pity’s sake. She wasn’t even her regular teacher. Larissa couldn’t have formed a real attachment to her in such a short time. He could understand Connie Wheeler, but not her.

      Swallowing his pride, he surrendered to the inevitable.

      “Is Mrs. Wheeler around?”

      Annette gave him a blank look.

      “Connie Wheeler,” he clarified. “Is she working today?”

      “Oh, Miss Connie doesn’t work here,” Annette stated flatly.

      He was surprised. She always seemed to be around. Perhaps she worked elsewhere on the church grounds, as a secretary or something.

      “Where does she work?”

      “I don’t think she works anywhere,” the day care teacher replied, screwing up her face as if thinking required much effort. “I heard she was looking for something, though.”

      Kendal glanced at his watch, filing that information away. Ministers didn’t usually make very much money, and he assumed that the Wheelers could use a little extra income. That, however, was not his problem.

      Looked like he was on his own.

      Mentally fortifying himself, he reached for his daughter again. She bucked, arched her back and screamed. Resigned to another difficult evening, he physically pulled the child into his embrace. She thrashed for several seconds.

      She stopped fighting him by the time he got her to the car and he prayed all the way home that this would be an end to it, at least for the evening.

      Connie lifted her chin, pasted on a smile and did her best to set aside her troubling thoughts.

      Her afternoon interview at the school had not gone as well as she’d hoped. The counselor had warned her pointblank that many prospective employers would not consider hiring her because of her record. He suggested that she consider a field that did not touch on medicine or the administration of drugs in any form, and he hadn’t altered his advice one whit when she explained her situation.

      Heartsick, Connie surveyed the school’s course offerings again, but nothing that the counselor suggested had seemed workable.

      She indulged in a bout of tears as she drove herself back to the church to pick up her son.

      She wasn’t even inside the building when she heard the commotion, and to her shock, Millie was not at her post. The frail woman came running the instant she heard the chime that signaled the door had been opened, and the look on her face said that the uproar had been going on for some time.

      “Miss Connie!” she gasped. “Your brother is even back there.”

      “Larissa Oakes?” Connie guessed and Millie nodded, her mouth set in a distraught line.

      “She didn’t want to eat her lunch—not one bite—and when Miss Susan tried to feed her, she started to cry. Then Miss Dabney scolded her and she’s been carrying on ever since.”

      “Is her father here?” Connie asked, already turning toward the hall.

      “Yes, and if you ask me,” Millie said, “that has only made matters worse.”

      Connie sent her a disapproving frown as she hurried away.

      Anyone could see that the man was doing the best he could. She, for one, was tired of the implication that he was causing this.

      Rounding the corner at a near run, she came to a sudden halt, taking in the chaos.

      Larissa stood against the wall next to the infirmary door with both arms around the nurse’s leg. She was trembling from head to toe, red in the face and wailing, nose and eyes running like faucets while Kendal Oakes and Miss Dabney glared at each other and Marcus and the nurse looked on helplessly.

      “Just because she doesn’t like corned beef is no reason to label her mentally deficient!” Kendal declared hotly.

      “I’m only saying that we can’t have her disrupting everything constantly!” Miss Dabney countered. “We have other children here—well children.”

      “What is that supposed to mean?” Kendal demanded. “Are you implying that my daughter is mentally ill?”

      “This isn’t helping!” Marcus insisted with steady authority. “Everyone just please calm down.”

      Miss Dabney swallowed whatever she was about to say, folding her arms mulishly. Kendal clamped his jaw, his hands at his waist. Even Larissa shut up, but Connie saw the child’s eyes bulge.