A Nest of Sparrows Read online

  Wade chuckled to himself and dug out another handful of nails. If he didn’t love the woman so much, she would’ve driven him halfway to loony and back by now.

  Fifteen minutes later Wade’s cell phone jangled again. He spit out a mouthful of nails and plucked the phone from his belt, wiping the metallic tang from his lips with the back of his hand. “Sullivan.”

  “Hey, Wade.” It was Sophie. “I’m at Starr’s place with the kids, but she’s still not home, and I’m supposed to be at work in half an hour.”

  “Well, shoot-fire, where is she?”

  “You’re asking me?”

  Wade smiled into the phone. “Yeah, yeah… Okay, I can wrap it up here. I’ll stop by the house and see what’s up, then one of us’ll be right over to get the kids. Sorry about this, Sophe.”

  “Hey, it’s not your fault.”

  Wade disconnected and shouted across the roof where his partner, Pete Dolecek, was fitting flashing around a chimney. “Hey, Pete, I’ve got to go pick up the kids. Do you mind cleaning up?”

  Pete gave a half-salute and turned back to his work. Wade holstered his tools, climbed down the ladder, and jumped into his pickup. It took him ten minutes to get out to the house.

  Wade had remodeled a lot of houses in his day, and he’d taken pride in each one. But none of them had ever contained every ounce of his hopes and dreams the way this one did. He drove around to the back and parked the truck. Sure enough. Starr’s car was still there.

  He tooted the horn and shaded his eyes, looking up to the second story. He couldn’t see any lights on in the windows, but maybe it was still bright enough on the north side that she didn’t need the light.

  The back door was unlocked. Wade stepped inside. “Starr?” He walked through the entryway and up the short flight of stairs to the kitchen. “Starr?”

  His work boots hammered across the hardwood floors in the living room. He started up the staircase. “Hey! You up here, Starr?”

  He stopped to listen again. Usually sound carried like an echo in a canyon through these empty old rooms. But now it was eerily silent. “Hey, babe? Where are you?”

  No answer.

  The door to the master bedroom was halfway closed. When he’d left for work this morning, she’d hinted about a surprise for him. She’d fixed each of the kids’ rooms up real pretty, painting a special poem or saying along the top of the wall like a border, and on the plaster ceiling in Lacey’s room. She was probably doing something fancy to the master bedroom, too.

  Starr had a real gift with a paintbrush. He’d always tried to encourage her to do something more with her talent. He wouldn’t be surprised if she could make good money just painting murals and borders for people. That seemed to be all the rage right now. To be honest, he didn’t care much for all that fancy stuff on walls. But it was something Starr enjoyed. It would sure beat that nurse aide job she had at the retirement home.

  But whenever he brought up the subject, she brushed off his compliments. “You have to be a lot better than I am to get paid for that kind of thing, Wade. You’re just prejudiced because you happen to love me.”

  Well, that he did. Nobody would argue that. Even when she pulled scatterbrained, thoughtless stunts like this, upsetting everybody’s schedule.

  He carefully pushed open the door to the master bedroom, knowing she could easily be atop a ladder on the other side of the door. “Hey, you…” The acrid scent of fresh paint assailed his nostrils. And something else. Something worse.

  He stopped short.

  Starr was lying on the floor in front of the windows, curled up in a ball. If she was napping, she was in a deep sleep. He’d made enough racket to wake the dead coming up here. His heart thumped out an odd rhythm as he walked over to where she lay.

  He bent over her. “Starr? Hey…wake up.” The minute he touched her shoulder, he knew something was wrong. Terribly, eternally wrong.

  He dropped to his knees and gently rolled her onto her back. Her face was drained of color. Her eyes were half open, but their vibrant blue had faded to a cloudy gray, and there was no flicker of life in them, nor in the pulse points he frantically sought for some spark of hope that she was still with him.

  She was gone. He knew it as sure as he knew he loved her. His breath came in short gasps as he eased Starr’s body back to the floor and brushed his palm over her eyelids, closing them. The blood pounded in his ears as he stood and whirled around the room, looking for some clue to what had happened. She wasn’t lying close enough to the ladder to have fallen.

  A small can of moss green paint sat open atop the ladder’s pail shelf, a congealed skin formed over its contents. The brush resting across the lid of the can was dry and stiff. Wade looked up toward the ceiling. The paint matched Starr’s familiar, elegant script that snaked across the top of the walls. But he couldn’t put the letters and words together in a way that made sense.

  His breath grew more shallow and he felt light-headed. Oh, dear God. How can this be happening? He looked at his watch. Probably no more than two minutes had passed since he’d walked into this room, but it seemed as if an eternity had elapsed. He turned to Starr’s still form again and felt an irrational, desperate need to go to her, try to revive her—even though he knew it would be in vain.

  He needed to call––who? The ambulance? It was too late for that. He ripped his cell phone off his belt and punched in 9-1-1. He heard himself telling the dispatcher where he was, that Starr was dead, that he didn’t know what had happened. But even his own wobbly voice couldn’t convince him this was real.

  He hung up and slumped to the floor beside Starr. He put his hand on her head, felt the velvety texture of her pale corn-silk hair beneath his fingers. He was paralyzed. Unable to move, unable to think. Unable to breathe.

  Dear Lord… How could she be gone? How could he go on without her? What would he tell the kids?

  He leaned his head back against the window frame and let his gaze travel up to the final words Starr had penned––words he knew were meant for him alone. Words that now pierced his heart like a dagger.

  “Grow old along with me… The best is yet to be…”

  Chapter 4

  Sophia Braden dropped the phone into its cradle and covered her mouth with her hands, trying to absorb the bombshell Wade had just dropped. Her throat constricted, and she struggled to catch her next breath.

  A tug on her shirttail made her look down.

  “Aunt Sophie? Was that my mama?” Danica looked up at her with those woeful puppy dog eyes––eyes so like her mother’s. How did you explain something like this to a four-year-old? Sophie could barely make sense of it herself.

  “No, sweetie,”––she took a deep breath and put a hand on her niece’s head, smoothing back the silky yellow hair––“that was Wade. He––” She swallowed back a sob that felt like a boulder. “He’s going to pick you guys up in a little bit.”

  A glint of suspicion crossed Danica’s delicate features, and she looked hard into Sophie’s face, then ducked out from under her caress and ran back to the living room, where her brother and sister were watching a video.

  What on earth was Wade going to tell these kids? And what would happen to them? No way in the world was Wade going to take on three kids and raise them. And she sure as Moses couldn’t do it.

  Her big sister was gone. Dead. Sophie was jolted all over again by the thought. It brought back too many memories that were better left buried. But one thing couldn’t be ignored. She was totally alone now.

  What could have happened to Starr? Wade said they didn’t know yet, but good grief, a twenty-nine-year-old woman didn’t just drop dead for no reason. She and Starr had had their differences over the years, but in spite of it all, Sophie loved her sister. Starr was the only family she had left. Now she was gone too.

  And where was her sister’s God now? She strangled a derisive snort. If Starr had one fault, it was that she was always trying to cram her religion––her faith, she called it�
��–down Sophie’s throat. Well, it didn’t take a psychologist to see that Starr had God and Wade mixed up. Just because things had finally gone right for Starr, just because she’d finally found a man who treated her like a princess and loved her brats as if they were his own, Starr was ready to jump up and shout hallelujah and give God all the credit. Well, where was God now?

  Sophie hoped Starr knew…wherever she was.

  Wade stood six feet from Star’s body, and finished answering the questions the emergency personnel––and later the medical investigator from the coroner’s office––threw at him. But Wade had no light to shed on what could have caused Starr’s sudden death. Numb, he told them everything he could think of: She’d spent long hours working at the house, using all kinds of paints and varnishes. She’d been fighting a cold for several days, but that hadn’t seemed to slow her down. No, she wasn’t on any regular medications, though he thought she might have been taking something for the sinus headache. But he couldn’t be certain. He wracked his brain for anything else that might help and came up blank.

  Finally, they covered Starr’s body and carried her from the house. Like an automaton, Wade locked up the house, climbed into his truck, and drove over to Sophie’s place. He trudged up the sidewalk to the run-down apartment. It took supreme effort to put one foot in front of the other. How could he tell those kids their mama was dead? They’d had so many struggles already in their short lives.

  He rang the doorbell. Almost immediately the door swung inward, and two featherweight little girls swooped on him. “Wade! Wade’s here! Wade’s here!”

  Father, give me the words. “Hey, half-pint.” He hoisted Danica up with one arm and pulled her seven-year-old sister close with the other. “Hey, Lacey Daisy. Hey, Dani Banany.”

  Beau waited in the wings, with the newly acquired aloofness of an almost nine-year-old. “Hey, buddy.” Wade put up a hand for their ritual “give me five” greeting.

  Beau slapped Wade’s hand hard with his small palm, then dipped his head and tossed Wade a crooked grin.

  “Where’s Mama?” Dani asked, looking past Wade to the front door.

  He felt his spirit falter. “Come here, guys.” He started toward the living room, Dani still in his arms, herding the other two beside him. “I…I need to talk to you…about your mama.”

  From the corner of his vision, Wade saw Sophie grab the remote and switch off the television. She leaned on the doorjamb.

  He sat down on the shabby sofa and pulled Danica close, breathing in the sweet baby shampoo scent of her hair. Beau and Lacey stared at him, waiting. What were they expecting him to say? Surely not the terrible, devastating words he was about to utter.

  He cleared his throat and fought for control. “Something happened to your mama this morning. We…we’re not sure what yet, but she had an accident––or maybe she was sick––we don’t know for sure,” he repeated. “The…the doctor is going to try to find out. But your mama…she’s in heaven now.”

  “She died?” Beau’s voice cracked and his face contorted. He stood like a statue for a long minute before his angry outburst split the air. “No! You’re a liar!”

  Wade reached for him, but Beau wriggled out of his grasp and ducked between the sofa and the wall, whimpering.

  “I’m sorry, Beau. We don’t know why, but yes…your mama died. And she’s in heaven with Jesus now.”

  “You’re a liar,” Beau spat again. “I hate you! I hate Jesus! I want my mama back!”

  Danica began to whimper. “I want Mama. I don’t want Mama to go up to heaven.”

  Wade held the little girl close, drawing strength from her birdlike weight on his lap. Her thumb went to her mouth––a habit that had been broken last year before she started preschool. He pulled Lacey into the circle. She snuggled close to him, dazed and silent.

  Wade looked to Sophie, wondering why she didn’t help him out somehow. Why didn’t she go to Beau, try to comfort him. Or talk to the girls? But Starr’s sister stood apart, removed from the scene. Wade reminded himself that Sophie had lost a sister, too. They were all in shock.

  Gently, Wade eased the little girls from his lap and went to kneel beside the sofa where Beau crouched. He put a firm hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Hey, Beau. C’mon, buddy, look at me.”

  Beau jerked away from his touch.

  “Come on, Beau. I need your help here. I know it’s tough. I miss your mama, too. But we need to be strong…for the girls. Help me out here, okay?”

  Beau sat stock still, but Wade could tell by the way his sniffling quieted that he was weighing his words.

  Finally Beau turned, still squatting on his haunches. He glared at Wade. “Why did she die?”

  Wade risked reaching out to him again. This time Beau let him rest a hand on his shoulder. “I don’t know, buddy. I don’t understand it either. We’re just going to have to be patient until the coron––” He stopped himself, not wanting to have to define the word coroner for an eight-year-old.

  He started over. “We’ll have to wait until the doctor examines her. Then maybe we’ll know more about what happened. You sit with the girls for a minute, okay? I need to talk to your aunt Sophie.”

  Beau nodded, his eyes glazed.

  Wade motioned Sophie to follow him into the apartment’s tiny kitchen. “What do you want to do?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “About the kids. Do you think it would be best if they stayed with you tonight?”

  Sophie started wagging her head before Wade even got the question out. “I don’t have room for three kids here, Wade. You can see that. Besides, I can’t afford to miss work.” She looked at her watch. “I’ve already lost almost two hours as it is.”

  “You’re going back to work?”

  “The bills don’t pay themselves, Wade.”

  “Sophie, your sister just died. You’re not going to work.” How could she be so cold? She must be in denial. “I’ll take the kids to Starr’s and stay there with them tonight,” he told her. “But we’re going to have some decisions to make tomorrow…about the kids. We need to decide where they’re going to stay…” Wade heard his sensible words, knew they were true, but there was a surreal quality about the very air in the room.

  And yet, as each second ticked off the clock over Sophie’s cluttered kitchen table, he was clouted with a startling new thought about the reality of what Starr’s death meant for him: There would be no wedding in August. The big house he and Starr had restored would never hold all the love they felt for each other. The children were orphans, and the house had no purpose now.

  Every room in that house had been lovingly created for one of those children. Beau and Lacey and Danica’s names were painted in Starr’s hand on the walls of the rooms. Just like the mocking couplet that crawled across the wall in the room he and Starr should have shared come summer.

  Oh, Starr…Starr light, Starr bright. He placed a hand over his chest in a futile effort to ease the terrible ache that throbbed there.

  “They need you now, Wade. They ought to be with you.” Sophie’s words brought him sharply back to the present.

  He nodded. “Yeah. Okay. I’ll take them back to Starr’s and stay with them tonight. Who…who do we need to call?” Starr and Sophie’s parents were dead. The sisters had no other living relatives. “What about Darrin?”

  Wade had never given the children’s biological father much thought. He knew only the little Starr had chosen to reveal about Darrin Parnell. The man had been abusive to Starr and neglectful of the children. They’d divorced when Starr became pregnant with Dani because Darrin insisted Starr have an abortion. Starr had cut off all contact with Darrin even before the baby was born. She’d told Wade she hadn’t even wanted child support from a man who wished one of their babies dead.

  But Parnell needed to know now, didn’t he? Wade stepped into the living room and looked at the children huddled there. Would Darrin Parnell have a claim to these precious children? Wade shuddered at the th
ought. And for the first time his heart fully acknowledged that Beau and Lacey and Danica Parnell belonged to him––Wade Sullivan. He couldn’t have loved them more even if they were his own flesh and blood. Over the two and a half years he and Starr had known each other, these kids had become his. Not once had he seen them as a liability Starr dragged after her. No. They were a windfall. Just one more wonderful asset that was a part of Starr. One more gift she’d bestowed on him when, unbelievably, she’d offered him her love.

  “Darrin won’t care,” Sophie said, staring blindly past Wade, bitterness thick in her voice. “He doesn’t deserve to know.”

  Wade looked at her. He agreed with Sophie. But still, they ought to let him know. “Okay…we’ll worry about it after the funeral,” he said. “Right now these kids need some supper in their bellies. And they need to be home.”

  Sophie just nodded. While Wade rounded up the kids and their things, Sophie grabbed her purse and car keys off the kitchen counter. “I’ll be at work.”

  The ten blocks to Starr’s apartment was the longest drive Wade had ever made. In his rearview mirror, he watched the kids lined up in the cramped backseat of his pickup. They sat buckled in, hands in their laps, eyes boring into the back of the bench seat in front of them. Any other time, he and Starr would have spent half the trip turned around in their own seats trying to shush the chatterboxes.

  He pulled into Starr’s parking space, jumped out of the truck, and leaned his seat forward to help the girls with their seatbelts. Beau’s eyes met his, and Wade cringed at the emptiness he saw there.