"Like what?" Quinn asked him, really wanting to know.
"Like she always wears a dress and dances or plays the flute and stuff." Evan shrugged.
Quinn looked down at Miss Jane, a vision in a little flowy dress, her flute raised to her lips.
"She plays to the bees and to the butterflies," Quinn told them, as if needing to explain, "so that they can fly to music."
"She has tea parties," Evan said with a mild touch of disdain.
"She's a girl mouse," Eric repeated, as if that said it all.
"Well, then, if you were writing the Miss Jane books, what would you do to make them more interesting to boys?"
Eric and Evan sat uncharacteristically still for an overly long moment.
"I know!" Eric hopped up and down on one foot. "You could give her a brother!"
"A twin brother," Evan added.
"Hmmm." Quinn contemplated the possibility. "And if I gave her a brother, what would I call him?"
"You could call him…" Eric bit his bottom lip, pondering the very important task of naming Miss Jane's only brother.
"Jed! For Jedidiah!" Evan shouted gleefully. "Like Jedidiah McKenzieJ"
"Perfect!" Quinn exclaimed. "Jedidiah Mousewing. Now, what do you suppose he looks like? Describe him for me, so that I can draw him. Help me to put him on paper…"
For the next fifteen minutes, Quinn bent over the sketch pad, a small boy at each elbow, totally oblivious to the man who stood in the doorway, her forgotten cup of tea in one hand, his heart on his sleeve. After all the nights he'd dreamed of her, all the times he'd unconsciously sought her face in every crowd in every airport he'd walked through, in every stadium he'd ever played in, there she was, calmly sitting there sketching away, looking for all the world as if she belonged there with his sons. As if this was her place, her cabin, her family.
This is the way it should have been all along, he told himself. The way it would have been, if only she had been here that day.…
"Is that my tea?" she asked, her eyes bright with the excitement of creating a new character as she sketched to the boys' specifications.
"Ahhh… it might be a little cool," he told her, realizing that he'd been standing there staring for much longer than he'd intended.
"That's okay." She smiled at him, and he thought for a moment that the cabin seemed to tilt at an odd angle. "Would you like to meet Jed Mousewing?"
"Sure." He cleared his throat as he crossed the small distance between the kitchen and the ottoman and peered over her shoulder, much as his sons had done.
"See, Dad, he's a pioneer, just like Jed McKenzie was," Eric told him.
"He sort of looks a little like Davy Crockett," Cale noted, trying to ignore that scent of lilac again. "If Crockett had had a tail, two big front teeth, and big round ears."
"It's the buckskin," Quinn explained, tensing at his nearness. "The boys gave me an excellent idea for my next book. If it works, I'll give them credit."
"What does that mean?" Eric asked.
"It means that inside the book, it will say something like, 'Thanks to Evan and Eric McKenzie, for all their help in bringing Jed to life.' Something like that"
"You mean our names would be in the book?" Evan asked, wide-eyed.
"Yep."
"Wow."
"Of course, you'll have to help me think up things that mice-boys might like to do."
"We can do that. We're good at thinking up things to do."