Page 28 of The Dating Charade

If given the time, she would fall for Jett Bentley. She knew it with a certainty that betrayed her slow and methodical methods.

It wasn’t just about settling for what was left of the litter. He was kind. He was fun. He made her laugh in the middle of a serious conversation. He was the kind of guy who leaned on the side of down-to-earth experiences, but at the same time knew how to take a girl out.

And most important, he had a credit score of 747. And a beat-up truck with 319,000 miles. Clearly she was well on her way to becoming a trophy wife.

But then, there were the girls.

Rachel had been vague about the children’s future. She’d said a meeting with DCS would come in a few weeks after Rachel gathered more information about the situation. The decision to bring the girls in right now had been only as a temporary haven.

Even so, Cassie wasn’t stupid. She knew Star’s family tree fairly well, and none of it included some benevolent aunt about to step up. So unless there was some long-lost relative willing to take the girls in, they were going to be displaced for a while. Maybe a long while.

What would Cassie do then, faced with that reality?

One day at a time. She’d just have to take it one day at a time.

Two separated, curvy roads shifted back into her mind and she punched the pillow beneath her once more, forcing her eyes to shut, and with it, the worries that would have to wait until tomorrow.

* * *

Had she told herself she would take it one day at a time? Silly her. She meant hour.

“No, no, Deidre. Let’s leave the doctor’s—” She blinked, unable to remember the word. Long sticks. Cardboard. No, not cardboard. Stickish. Of wood. It was only one o’clock and she felt like she needed an espresso IV. “Let’s leave the doctor’s bowl of sticks alone.”

“Tongue depressors,” the doctor said with a mild grin. He tried, yet again, to press the stethoscope to Kennedy’s back. “Can you hold her still?”

“Believe me, I’m trying.” Cassie regripped her arms around Kennedy’s waist. Kennedy arched back, another successful four-year-old thwarting two grown-ups.

At least for the moment she wasn’t crying.

The doctor pulled back after one more attempt, rolled his chair over to where Deidre was now inching her hand toward the glass jar of cotton balls, and picked up his clipboard. “I’m going to jump next door while we wait on the results. I’ll be back in a few minutes, Ms. Everson.”

Oh, sure. Super. No problem. These were all words she would’ve calmly said in her former single life. Are you crazy, however, was the phrase that now came most clearly to mind.

“Okay.” Cassie kept her voice calm while hoping he saw the screaming in her eyes. She was currently at that level of desperation—not yet pleading out loud for mercy, but begging without words.

“You’re doing great. But I would try to keep that one from licking the floor again.”

She nodded as she regripped Kennedy, the slippery worm who had in fact been caught licking the floor ten minutes earlier. The sound of the door shutting was like the nail in a coffin.

For not the fifteenth time today, she wished Star had stayed back from school to help her, not the other way around. Star was the one who was transitioning into all of this like the real adult. In fact, at 7:00 a.m. Cassie had walked into a kitchen of stacked plates and used frying pans, where Star had created a breakfast fit for queens: toast, bananas, and whole slices of cheese covering scrambled eggs. Kennedy ate three helpings of Star’s concoction, including Cassie’s share.

Star was the real grown-up here. And really, who needed algebra?

Kennedy squirmed her way off Cassie’s lap again and moved toward the doctor’s computer plug.

“Who wants another story?” Cassie plucked the book from the office’s top stack. Gingerly she turned the page, trying not to think about how many illnesses lived on it. She began reading the story of a big red dog making well-meaning but silly mistakes. In seconds Kennedy dropped the cord and jumped back onto Cassie’s lap as if they were the closest of friends. It took a couple of pages to draw Deidre in, but eventually her bony elbows pressed against Cassie’s thigh as she leaned over her to see the pages.

Which led to the questions.

“What’s that man doing?” Kennedy asked.

“He’s painting his house.”

“Why’s he painting his house?”

“Maybe the paint was peeling off.”

“Why did the paint peel off?”