“But you’re staying for a while though, right?” Becca asked Tanner.
There was something about the way she was looking at him that tugged at Tanner’s heartstrings. Where there was only three years between him and Gray, with Cam and Logan slap bang in the middle, Becca was the youngest by four years. Growing up, she’d always chased them around on her tiny legs, panting loudly when she couldn’t keep up.
Then as they’d left home one by one, she’d been forlorn without them. If you took his arm and twisted it behind his back he might just admit he missed her, too.
He’d never tell her that.
“I might hang around for a bit,” he conceded. “It’s not as though I’ve got anything better to do.” Counting the dollars in his account had already bored him to death. He needed to get a hobby and fast.
What was it that Aunt Gina always said? The devil makes work for idle hands. Right now his whole body was idle. Who knew what the devil had planned for him next?
Chapter Three
Tanner, age 6
Tanner glanced at the girl out of the corner of his eye, willing her to stop rocking back and forth on her chair. Any minute now Mrs. Mason was going to notice, and he knew she was going to tell her off.
He hated getting told off. It made his stomach feel all twisty and sick.
The girl tipped back again, and he automatically reached out to the back of her chair, stopping her mid rock.
“Hey. What’ya doing?” she asked, shocked at the abrupt halt to her fun.
“You’re gonna get in tr
ouble,” he told her, his eyes wide.
She shrugged. “So what?”
“Tanner Hartson, is that you talking?” Mrs. Mason asked, turning around from the chalkboard at the front of the room. “I swear you Hartson boys will be the death of me.”
He narrowed his eyes and glared at the girl. She stuck her tongue out and winked.
She could wink? That was cool.
The sun was beating through the window to her left, turning her hair as golden as the cornfields at harvest time. Without even thinking, he reached out to touch it, surprised at how silky it felt between his fingers. His own hair – and his brothers’ was thick and coarse like wool. Baby Becca’s hair was soft and downy, but not silky like that. He liked the way it felt.
The girl gave him a strange look.
“Your hair is pretty,” he whispered.
“Thanks.” She grinned the biggest, widest smile he’d ever seen. It was like being blinded by the sun.
“Okay, who in here knows how to write their name?” Mrs. Mason asked, her eyes scanning the six-year-olds sitting in front of her.
Tanner shot his hand up. His mom had painstakingly taught him that a year ago. He noticed the rest of the class do the same.
All except the girl next to him. The smile on her face dissolved as she looked around and realized she was the only one in the class with her hand down. Slowly she pushed hers up, her jaw jutting out like she was gritting her teeth.
“Okay, children. I’d like you to show me how you do it. Use the paper and crayons on your desk, please.” She smiled at them. “Make me proud.”
Tanner pulled a piece of the drawing paper toward him, and took a green crayon from the plastic pot in the middle of their wooden desk. Curling his fingers around it, he slowly moved the crayon across the white expanse, drawing his ‘T’ as straight as he could, before slowly forming the rest of the letters.
When he stopped, he wrinkled his nose at his efforts. His letters were too slopey. Gray had told him to write in a straight line. He sighed and went for another piece of paper when he realized the girl hadn’t begun to write her name.
“You need to write your name,” he whispered. “Before Mrs. Mason comes to look.”
The girl’s gaze slid to their teacher then back to Tanner. “I don’t know how.”