“Yes, sir.” She saluted him like a boot-camp private, but there was far more respect in that gesture than sarcasm. To her delight, Steve saluted her back.

Chapter 11

“Who was that on the phone?” Garth asked, sitting up in bed and reading from his tablet.

Karen closed their bedroom door, her mind and heart troubled. “My sister.”

“Problems with Nichole?” Garth set his e-reader on the bedside table and lifted the covers for Karen.

“It was actually Cassie,” Karen explained, and slipped into the bed next to him. She scooted close to her husband, and Garth placed his arm around her shoulders, warming her with more than his closeness.

“What did she want this time?” he asked skeptically.

“Nothing. She’s only asked for financial help that one time when we just weren’t able to do it.”

“I don’t know why you insist on feeling guilty about that. If you’d given her the money it would never have ended. Every time something came up she’d come running to you to bail her out financially. I know it was hard to turn her down, but you did the right thing.”

“It’s more than that …” Garth didn’t know about their last terrible fight just before she’d run away from home.

“Karen,” her husband said, cutting her off. “You don’t need to make up excuses with me.”

“I’m not. I did what was necessary. Cassie had to know she couldn’t just waltz back into our lives as if nothing had happened. We were dealing with Dad’s death and I wasn’t about to take on her problems, too.”

“I’m not going to argue with you, sweetheart. Like I said, you did the right thing.”

“I have to wonder,” she murmured, her brow furrowed with consternation.

“Karen …”

“I know, I know. It doesn’t do any good to rehash this over and over. What’s done is done. When I spoke to Nichole about the inheritance, she was adamant we did everything we should have. Cassie wasn’t mentioned in the will and we have no obligation to give her a penny from the sale of the house.”

“It isn’t the legality of the matter that concerns you, it’s the moral issue. You want to be fair.”

Her husband read between the lines easily enough.

“Yes.” Garth always seemed to understand her best. It was as if he knew her thoughts, which were often convoluted and conflicting when it came to dealings with Cassie.

“You offered her the furniture and she was happy with that.”

Happy didn’t begin to describe Cassie’s reaction. She’d been overwhelmed with gratitude, pleased and excited. The fact that her sister had been so grateful and appreciative of this offhanded, nearly meaningless gesture had given Karen second thoughts. The decision she’d made with Nichole didn’t rest easy with her and she wasn’t sure what to do about it. Karen placed a hand over her mouth to cover a yawn.

“Any particular reason Cassie called?” Garth asked.

“Yes. She needed to know for exactly how long the storage fees had been paid. I asked her when she’d be collecting Mom and Dad’s things, but she couldn’t give me an answer. She said she’d get them as soon as she could make the arrangements.” In thinking about the call, Cassie had been vague about how and when she intended to make the trip across the state. “I told her we could give her a bit of extra time if she needed it.”

“Karen, I thought we agreed. Two months and that was it.”

“An extra month isn’t going to break the bank, Garth.” Karen was surprised that her husband would make a fuss over this. “Besides, by the time I reached out to her she didn’t have the full two months to make arrangements. I want Cassie to have something to remember our parents by.”

Her husband kissed the top of her head. “You’re much too kind.”

“She is my sister,” she reminded him.

“The sister you barely know.”

That was true. Karen didn’t know Cassie any longer. Although they had shared a childhood, their relationship had come to an abrupt halt the year Cassie turned eighteen. It shocked her to think she hadn’t seen Cassie since she ran off and married Duke.

Garth reached over and turned out his bedside lamp. “We have a busy day tomorrow.”

Karen didn’t need the reminder. Her days were crammed full. In the mornings she left the house like a racehorse in the Kentucky Derby. Weekends weren’t much better. It was after eleven already, and she had volunteered to accompany Lily’s Girl Scout troop on a field trip to the Spokane Airport in the morning. She hoped it would take only two or three hours, tops.

Garth was scheduled to take Buddy to his baseball game, and if they were able to coordinate their schedules, then they would meet up for lunch at their favorite pizza place. In the afternoon, Karen needed to help Lily sell her quota of Girl Scout cookies. They’d gotten permission to set up a table outside the Albertsons’ grocery store.

The cookie sale would well take an additional two hours out of her day, and she had yet to get the laundry going or some basic housecleaning chores. And she had no idea what she’d make for dinner.

Although the lights were off and her husband was asleep and softly snoring, Karen’s mind continued to whirl like the blades of a helicopter ready to take off from the launch pad. Sunday was no better. She had yet to prepare for teaching the fifth- and sixth-grade Sunday school class, and afterward Garth’s sister had invited them to dinner and Karen was supposed to bring the dessert. She didn’t know when she was going to find time to squeeze baking a cake in. And on Monday there was an employee meeting before the office officially opened at eight, which meant …

“Mom …” Buddy’s shout woke Karen from a sound sleep. She bolted upright and glanced at the digital readout on the bedside clock. It was barely past four.

Tossing aside the covers, Karen tucked her feet into her slippers and went to investigate. Her son was in the hallway outside his room.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, struggling to hold back a yawn.

“Daisy threw up.”

Daisy was their cat—or, rather, Lily’s cat, although she seemed far more attached to Buddy than she was to his sister.

“It’s all over my bed and it’s yucky.”

Great. Just what she needed to start off her morning. “Come on, I’ll change the sheets for you.”

“It looks like blood.”

On closer examination Karen realized that Crazy Daisy had indeed thrown up and it wasn’t pet food that she was seeing mingled in with Buddy’s sheets. It was the remains of a mouse. Karen pressed her hand over her forehead. Daisy was an indoor cat, which meant there were mice in the house.

“What’s happening in here?” Garth asked, standing in the doorway to Buddy’s bedroom. “Is there a party going on? How come I wasn’t invited?”

“Crazy Daisy threw up on my bed,” Buddy told his father.

“You might want to take a look at this,” Karen told her husband, pointing toward a readily identifiable rodent body part.

Garth walked over to the bed and his eyes met hers. “Gross.”

That was putting it mildly. “We’re going to need to get someone from a pest-control service to the house,” she said. “I don’t have a clue when I’ll have time to fit that into my week.”

Garth slowly exhaled. “Don’t worry about it, honey, I’ll take care of it.”

“The exterminator will only come on weekdays unless we’re willing to pay an outrageous fee for a weekend visit and then I’ll need to take a half-day off work and that’s only if he arrives on time—”

“Karen,” Garth said gently, and took hold of her shoulders. “I’ll work at home one day next week. I’ll take care of this. You don’t need to do everything on your own. You have a husband, you know.”

“You don’t mind?” She hadn’t expected Garth to be so willing.

“Waiting around for a pest-control truck isn’t my favorite job, but I’ll survive.”

Karen sighed with relief. “Buddy, while I’m changing your sheets, you take a shower.”