There was a note of defiant pride in her voice that caught his attention. “It sounds as if you admire Mr. Sparks.”
She blushed furiously. “Well, of course I do. He does fine work.”
“I was thinking of a more personal sort of admiration.”
“Oh, get on with your foolishness. I’m too old for what you’re suggesting.”
“Molly, you’ll always be young. That’s your nature. Raymond walked off and left you on your own with those two sons of yours thirty years ago. You did a fine job of raising them, better than anyone in my family’s done with their kids, that’s for sure. If you’re interested in Mr. Sparks, go for it. He’s been a widower for some time now. He’d probably appreciate an invitation to dinner every now and again.”
“I couldn’t,” she protested.
“Of course you could. Do you know a finer cook in all of Westmoreland County?”
“No, but—”
“Ask him, Molly. If you don’t, I’ll put a bug in his ear about you.”
“If you do, Kevin Patrick Daniels, I’ll take a switch to the seat of your britches the way I used to. Given how threadbare they are, it’ll hurt worse now than it did back then.”
“Don’t make threats you can’t follow up on,” he teased. “I’m quicker now than I used to be.” His expression sobered. “Ask him, Molly. I know he’s spending a lot more time here than he needs to. There must be a reason for that, and I’m guessing that you’re it.”
“He does stop in for lemonade at the end of the day,” she confessed.
“Well, then, next time he does, just ask him to stay on for supper.”
She grinned. “Maybe I will. In the meantime, you ask him about planting that garden. He’ll tell you what to do. He probably has everything you need in his greenhouse.”
Before he could get on with his plan, though, Kevin had paperwork to finish up and a not unexpected visit from his cousin Helen. She almost always turned up after one of his more contentious encounters with her younger brother. Bobby Ray was a whiner and Helen always listened.
“Kevin, what on earth did you say to Bobby Ray the other day?” she demanded without so much as a greeting to preface it. “He’s on the warpath. He thinks we should all hire an attorney to sue you for our money and an accountant to do an audit.”
Kevin sighed. They’d been through this so many times, he had his response memorized. “If you want to waste your money that way, go right ahead. You know the terms of your father’s will as well as I do. They’re iron-clad. I ought to know. I’ve been hunting for a loophole to get out of it myself for years.”
“As for an audit,” he continued, “I provide you with one every year. You all pick the accountant, I don’t.”
“I know all that,” she said dismissively. “So does Bobby Ray. What did you do to set him off?”
“I’m amazed he didn’t tell you.”
“Well, of course he did. I want to hear your version.”
“I refused to give him the money for another one of his schemes.”
Helen sighed. “I should have guessed he hadn’t just asked for a piddly little advance on his trust funds. What was it this time? A hamburger franchise next to McDonald’s?”
“Not quite that bad. I believe this one was a jewelry designer he wanted to back on one of those cable shopping channels.”
“Must be that designer Sara Lynn is sleeping with.”
Kevin held up his hands to ward off a full-blown discussion of the tale. “I don’t want to know,” he said emphatically. His opinion of Sara Lynn was low enough without fresh gossip.
“You’re right. You don’t. If Bobby Ray ever managed to marry the right woman, he might be able to get his life on track. He’s not a bad person,” she said in defense of her younger brother.
“Nobody ever said he was. And he was married to the right person: Marianne. He has a terrific kid. None of that’s enough for him.”
“He just needs a sense of direction, a goal.”
“I agree. Maybe he could start by being a halfway decent father to Abby.”
“You know he doesn’t know how. Look at the example he had. Can’t you help him, Kev? That’s why Father left you in charge, you know. He thought you could straighten all of us out the same way you’ve been handling Uncle Bo and his brood.”
“I doubt Dr. Joyce Brothers and a team of her peers could straighten all of you out. Your father knew that. He just wanted to keep you financially stable.”
He regarded his older cousin fondly. Of all of them, Helen did have a head on her shoulders. She was brassy and pushy and, like her sister, a little too free with her credit cards, but she was insightful about human nature. She’d made the one solid marriage of all of them, to a man who had indulged her every whim. Maybe that was why she was also the only one who wasn’t on Kevin’s case about money all the time. Her husband had provided all she required, then left her with a nice insurance settlement when he’d died in a tragic boating accident a few years back.
“We are a dysfunctional lot, aren’t we?” she said. “And you’re right. We can thank Father for that. He never encouraged us do a thing for ourselves. He bailed us out of every single jam we got into. He bought Bobby Ray’s college diploma by promising the school a new liberal arts building. Then he wondered why none of us took responsibility for our actions.”
Kevin had given a lot of thought to his uncle’s handling of his five children. With a little guidance from Aunt Delia, he’d finally reached a conclusion. “Maybe bailing you out was the only way Uncle Steven knew to stay involved in your lives. It made him feel needed.”
“With Mama dying so young, all we ever needed was
