And Baby Makes Six. Linda Markowiak

of the laundry-room door. Heavy, clumping feet heading for the hall. Then one of the boys called, “D—aaa—d.”

      He was so relieved to have a reason to escape his niece’s scrutiny, he didn’t even consider the oddity of someone at the door at eight in the morning. He turned and headed back down the stairs.

      “It’s some lady,” Tommy called as Mitch passed the kitchen doorway on his way to the front hall.

      He had an appointment with a woman who was applying for the job of full-time housekeeper, but that interview was supposed to be at the store later. The door was agape a fraction. He pulled it open.

      Jenny Litton stood on his doorstep, a small carry-on bag in her hand.

      He froze, his hand on the doorknob.

      “Is she all right?”

      He blinked. “Huh?”

      She said impatiently, “Crystal. Just tell me, is she okay? What’s wrong with her?”

      “Nothing’s wrong with Crystal.” Hadn’t he determined that not two minutes ago? What in hell was Jenny Litton doing on his doorstep?

      “Was she in the emergency room? What did the doctor say?”

      Her southern drawl was hurried. He realized belatedly that the woman looked white as a ghost, and that her eyes were round and intent. That previously smooth-as-glass hair of hers was in tumbled disarray. She was wearing a suit, but the jacket was unbuttoned, and a silky scarf had come loose from some mooring or other and fluttered in the breeze. She looked like a pale butterfly.

      A pretty butterfly. A sexy butterfly, if butterflies could be sexy.

      An angry butterfly.

      She was so pretty. That made him suddenly conscious of the fact he was bare-chested and bleary-eyed, and that he needed a shave. Besides, he didn’t have a clue what she was talking about.

      “Please.” She held out a hand. “I won’t get you in trouble with the court. Just let me see her.”

      When he didn’t immediately respond, Jenny seemed to make up her mind about something. Then she…charged him. She marched on him like a rookie defenseman, determined to send him flying into the boards. Stunned, he held open the door, certain that if he hadn’t, she would have shoved him aside.

      Once in the doorway, she called, “Crystal. Crystal!”

      “Miss Jenny!”

      There was clatter through the house. Commotion. Then his niece was in the hallway, running so fast she skidded on the hardwood floor.

      Jenny dropped her bag and knelt and grabbed her, hugging hard. “Oh, my Lord, you’re all right. Oh, my Lord…”

      Mitch raised his eyes. All four of his sons were in the hallway now, and all of them were watching Jenny and Crystal. Jenny was rocking her, and there were tears on her cheeks. “Oh, sweet baby, I was worried sick. The phone was busy all night…I almost called the police…I caught the first plane I could…You’re okay…”

      There was something about the scene that gave Mitch a stab of pure guilt. “Of course she’s okay,” he said gruffly. “You didn’t seriously think we’d hurt her, did you?”

      She looked up at him, her blue eyes capturing his. “I didn’t think so, but when I got her e-mail—”

      “E-mail. Crystal sends you e-mail?”

      Crystal looked up at him fearfully, but when she spoke, she sounded just a touch defiant. “You never said I couldn’t send e-mail.”

      He stared at her.

      “It was only because I thought I was dying,” Crystal explained.

      Dying?

      He said, “Uh, Jenny, why don’t you come in and we’ll talk about this.”

      Even as she straightened, he saw Ryan and Tommy start to slink away. “All of us.”

      Before he could suggest the living room, which was the cleanest room in the house because nobody used it, Tommy motioned Jenny Litton into the kitchen.

      He followed his sons, Crystal and Jenny, and then stood behind Jenny in the doorway. He was standing so close to her he could see the distinct colors of gold in her hair. Its disarray had exposed part of her neck. He saw the clasp of her pearls on skin that looked tender and white.

      Quickly, he raised his eyes. That was a mistake, too, because he found himself seeing his kitchen through her eyes. A kitchen that probably horrified Miss-Perfect-Pearls. There was a scratching sound intermingled with whines as Face-off begged to be let out of the laundry room.

      Six cupboard doors were open. Four bowls of milk were on the counter. Splashes everywhere. Errant Froot Loops. A crumpled cereal box. Two teaspoons, upside down in little puddles of milk. An empty cardboard box that had held last night’s pizza—it was too big to fit in the trash can, so the boys always waited for him to carry it to the garage. Schoolbooks, backpacks on the table. Lunch fixings—peanut butter and an open jar of jelly, chips, yogurt—he’d learned that it was best to pack the kids’ lunches the night before, but who could remember? One of the cords that held the draperies back on the big sliding doors in the eating area had come loose, and the draperies just…hung there on that side. When had that cord come undone?

      Jenny moved into the kitchen, and any minute now those high heels of hers would hit the sticky patch…

      He was going to mop the floor as soon as he had a chance. He was going to make the boys pick up after themselves. He really was going to make lunches the night before, from here on out.

      But first he had to find out why Crystal had thought she was dying.

      Jenny refused his offer to sit. He introduced her to the boys as a friend of Crystal’s. They hovered around the fringes of the room like groupies hanging out at the locker room after a game, looking everywhere but at Jenny and Crystal.

      Mitch lounged against the counter, a deceptively casual pose. “Okay,” he said quietly. “Why did you think you were dying, Crystal?”

      She took another look at Jenny, who squeezed her shoulders.

      In a small voice, she told about the football game of the day before.

      “It was touch,” Ryan said quickly, and Mitch made a slicing motion with his hand to cut his son off before he could explain further.

      “It was touch,” Crystal agreed. “But they touched real hard. They made me bleed. Then they made me promise not to tell. But before dinner, my arm stopped bleeding. I sort of forgot I sent the e-mail. But before I went to bed I wanted Miss Jenny to come. I want Miss Jenny to come before I go to bed every night.”

      That guilt came again, along with pressure in his chest. She still wanted Jenny to come and take her away? Crystal called her every night, but Mitch hadn’t known she went to sleep wanting anybody other than her mom, and he couldn’t bring back Kathy.

      He raked a hand through his hair again. Where was that absolute certainty that he was doing the right thing that had gripped him all the way to South Carolina, the sensation that had gotten him through his sister’s funeral and the decisions that followed?

      “Let me see your arm,” Jenny said in her slow southern drawl, a drawl that by its very slowness seemed comforting. She sat Crystal in a chair and knelt beside her as she carefully pulled up the girl’s sleeve.

      “It’s scratched,” she said in the same tone he imagined she’d use for “It’s broken.”

      He peered down.

      “It bled and bled,” Crystal said earnestly. “Or I wouldn’t bother Miss Jenny.”

      Jenny gave her hand a quick squeeze. “Sweetheart, you’re never bothering me.”

      Mitch looked the boys over real good. “Okay, which one of you had