"Ask me what? If you've spent all your allowances and work money on comics, I - "
"Are you going to marry Logan?" Gavin blurted out.
"Am I - where did you get an idea like that?"
"We heard Roz and Hayley talking about how he asked you to. " Luke yawned, blinked sleepily at her. "So are you?"
She sat on the side of Gavin's bed. "I've been thinking about it. But I wouldn't decide something that important without talking to both of you. It's a lot to think about, for all of us, a lot to discuss. "
"He's nice, and he plays with us, so it's okay if you do. "
Stella let out a laugh at Luke's rundown. All right, she thought, maybe not such a lot to discuss from certain points of view.
"Marriage is a very big deal. It's a really big promise. "
"Would we go live in his house?" Luke wondered.
"Yes, I suppose we would if. . . "
"We like it there. And I like w
hen he holds me upside down. And he got the splinter out of my finger, and it hardly hurt at all. He even kissed it after, just like he's supposed to. "
"Did he?" she murmured.
"He'd be our stepdad. " Gavin drew lazy circles with his finger on top of his sheet. "Like we have Nana Jo for a stepgrandmother. She loves us. "
"She certainly does. "
"So we decided it'd be okay to have a stepdad, if it's Logan. "
"I can see you've given this a lot of thought," Stella managed. "And I'm going to think about it, too. Maybe we'll talk about it more tomorrow. " She kissed Gavin's cheek.
"Logan said Dad's always watching out for us. "
Tears burned the back of her eyes. "Yes. Oh, yes, he is, baby. "
She hugged him, hard, then turned to hug Luke. "Good night. I'll be right downstairs. "
But she walked through to her room first to catch her breath, compose herself. Treasures, she thought. She had the most precious treasures. She pressed her fingers to her eyes and thought of Kevin. a treasure she'd lost.
Logan said Dad's always watching out for us.
A man who would know that, would accept that and say those words to a young boy was another kind of treasure.
He'd changed the pattern on her. He'd planted a bold blue dahlia in the middle of her quiet garden. And she wasn't digging it out.
"I'm going to marry him," she heard herself say, and laughed at the thrill of it.
Through the next boom of thunder, she heard the singing. Instinctively, she stepped into the bath, to look into her sons' room. She was there, ghostly in billowing white, her hair a tangle of dull gold. She stood between the beds, her voice calm and sweet, her eyes insane as she stared through the flash of lightning at Stella.
Fear trickled down Stella's back. She stepped forward, and was shoved back by a blast of cold.
"No. " She raced forward again, and hit a solid wall. "No!" She battered at it. "You won't keep me from my babies. " She flung herself against the frigid shield, screaming for her children who slept on, undisturbed.
"You bitch! Don't you touch them. "
She ran out of the room, ignoring Hayley, who raced down toward her, ignoring the clatter of feet on the stairs. She knew only one thing. She had to get to her children, she had to get through the barrier and get to her boys.