Fathers and Other Strangers. Karen Templeton

of the doubt. Maybe there was a valid reason she’d refused to tell Hank Logan he had a child. And maybe family loyalty was a lousy thing to base such a momentous decision on, but it was all she had.

      She glanced across at her niece, who looked almost happy for the first time in several days, and a bittersweet smile tilted her lips. No, Blair was all she had. And she wasn’t about to share her with anyone she didn’t feel in her soul she could trust.

      Without any reservations.

      “So…your aunt and uncle raised you?” Libby asked the next day.

      “Yeah.”

      Libby had finished all her chores, and since this was one of the days the part-time housekeeper came, her dad had told her—with a wink—to go on with Blair ’cause who needed two giggling girls hanging around the house? Blair thought Libby’s dad, Sam, was nice. Even though he had the farm to run and all those kids to take care of, it seemed like he was always laughing and smiling and teasing the kids. Not grumpy all the time like Mr. Logan. Oh, Libby had said her dad had been pretty sad for a long time after her mother had died, but that he’d really tried not to let it show. And that it was probably a good thing, him having all these kids, so he wouldn’t miss their mom so much.

      That’s what Blair had thought, too, after Uncle Phil died, that it was a good thing Jenna had her to keep her from getting lonely. The funny feeling came back, like a weird tickle in the middle of her chest.

      “I guess I think of Jenna more like my mom, since she’s always been around.”

      Since there wasn’t another bike Blair’s size, the two girls were walking, following the road around to where it would eventually meet up with the old highway, where the motel was. Libby bent over to pick a wild daisy, which she now twirled around and around in her fingers as they walked. “So you get along pretty good with her?”

      “Yeah. I guess. ’Cept when she’s in one of her ‘no, you can’t do that, you’re too young’ moods.”

      Libby let out a sigh, like she understood, then fluttered the hem of her baggy white T-shirt—they were dressed practically the same, in big shirts and denim shorts, their hair pulled back into ponytails—to let some air up inside. It was so hot. Libby had said it hadn’t rained in more than a month.

      Libby had also said she didn’t like wearing anything too tight since she’d started to get breasts, ’cause the boys kept staring at her. A problem Blair said she wished she had, until Libby pointed out how much she hated bouncing when she ran and besides, they hurt like anything when she got her period. “But if it makes you feel any better,” she added, probably because Blair hadn’t looked all that convinced, “I knew some girl at church who was flat as a pancake, but then she grew into a 38C over the summer when she was fourteen. So you never know.”

      It was weird, how Blair thought Libby was so pretty and perfect—well, except for her crooked teeth, but even they weren’t that bad—yet Libby said she’d give anything to be tall and skinny like Blair, and to have red hair like hers, that her own was just this boring old brown.

      “What happened to your real mom?” Libby now said, climbing over a post-and-rail fence to plop down in a shady area about halfway between the farm and the motel. The housekeeper had given the girls a sack filled with sandwiches and fruit. And bottles of water. Libby had said her dad didn’t want the kids drinking a lot of pop and stuff. “I mean, how’d she die?”

      “Oh.” Blair followed her, clumsily, dusting off her butt before sinking onto the grass beside her, which gave her time to decide how much of the truth to reveal. “A drug overdose.”

      Libby stopped rummaging in the lunch bag to look up. “No way?”

      “Yeah.”

      “Oh. Wow.” Libby pulled out an apple and swung the bag toward Blair, who shook her head. She was too hot to eat. Libby, however, took a huge bite of the green apple, chewing thoughtfully for a couple seconds. Then she said, “I knew a boy over in Pryor who died from drugs. My friend Heather’s cousin.” She crunched into the fruit again, talking around the mouthful. “I never knew a grown-up who died from them, though.”

      “Rock stars and stuff die from them all the time.”

      “Oh, yeah, huh?” Libby made a face at the apple. “Yuck. It’s all mushy.” When she reared back to hurl it into the cornfield, Blair could see the high, round bumps of Libby’s breasts. She didn’t care what Libby said, she wanted some of her own. Maybe if she looked more like a woman, Jenna would stop treating her like a child.

      “I’m never gonna do drugs,” Libby said. “They’re stupid. Besides, I wanna live to be a hundred….” She grabbed Blair’s arm, cocking her head. “You hear that?”

      “What?”

      “Coming from the blackberry bushes over there…c’mon!”

      Libby scrambled to her feet and took off. Blair followed, thinking Libby had gone nuts…until she, too, heard the frightened whimpering. Seconds later, they reached the wide clot of bushes strangling the fence farther down the road; Libby fell to her knees, then let out a small cry. “It’s a puppy! He’s all caught up in the bushes!”

      “Where? Let me see!” Blair dropped to all fours as well, her insides pinching at the sight of the black pup, so scared you could see the whites of his eyes. His high-pitched yips made Blair feel sick.

      “We’ve gotta get him out of there!” Without thinking, Blair grabbed for the branches to pull them away, only to let out a shriek of pain herself. “Ouch! Dammit!”

      “We’ve gotta get help,” Libby said. “If we try to get him out ourselves, we’ll end up worse off’n him.” She sat back on her knees and squinted over her shoulder. “It’s closer to the motel than back to the farm—c’mon!”

      Before Blair could protest, Libby had already taken off toward the Double Arrow, giving Blair no choice but to follow. Her feet pummeling the dirt, Libby looked over as they ran. “Your aunt know you cuss?”

      “Are you kidding?” Blair said, Libby’s breathless giggles mingling with the puppy’s rapidly fading squeals of pain and fear.

      Jenna had just sat down with her laptop when the girls burst into the cottage, both babbling about a puppy caught in some blackberry bushes and they couldn’t get him out and she needed to come right away and did they have anything they could cut the branches with?

      Refusing to let the girls’ panic infect her, Jenna ditched her reading glasses and got up from the table, shoving her feet into her abandoned espadrilles. “I bet Mr. Logan’ll have something we can use—”

      “No! Don’t ask him!”

      Already at the door, Jenna frowned at Blair. Not that she didn’t see Blair’s point—she could just imagine Hank’s reaction at being asked to rescue a puppy. Still— “I don’t think we have any choice, honey. I don’t even have a pair of gardening gloves, and toenail clippers are no match for blackberry bushes.”

      Several minutes later, they found Hank at one of the other cottages, replacing some rotten floorboards in the porch. This time, the girls hung back and let Jenna do the talking. Not surprisingly, Hank frowned. But not for the reasons Jenna would have expected.

      “Where is it?” he asked the girls.

      “Just down the road a ways,” Libby said, dancing from foot to foot. “You know, where all those bushes are?”

      “Yep, sure do.” He hoisted himself to his feet, clunking his hammer back into his toolbox. “Go on back to where he is. I’ll met you there.” Then he stopped, looking directly into first one set of frightened eyes, then the other. “Hey,” he said softly, then reached out and tugged on Libby’s ponytail. “It’s gonna be all right, you hear?”

      Libby nodded, then grabbed Blair’s hand—Blair was standing gawking at Hank as if he’d just admitted his Martian