They walked through the kitchen, where Sarge had taken up his favorite spot under the kitchen table. He thumped his tail as they grabbed gloves and hats from the hooks near the back door.
“She should call.” Eli’s little face was drawn into a frown of concentration. “She should call me.”
“Yeah, that she should.” Trace had tried to be honest with his boy from the get-go, but it hadn’t always been easy, especially with the trickier queries.
“Can you call her? Right now?”
That one stopped him cold. He snagged his jacket from a hook and shoved his arms down its sleeves. “I don’t know,” he said, holding his son’s gaze. “I think it would be best if she found us. She knows where we are.”
“You need to call her. Maybe she’s hurt! Maybe she’s dead like Miss Wallis!”
“She’s not dead,” Trace assured him.
“How do you know!”
“If anything happened to your mom, someone would phone us.” He jammed his Stetson onto his head.
“Not if they don’t know our number!”
Trace placed his hands on his son’s shoulders. Even with the padding of his quilted vest and down jacket, Eli’s body felt thin and small. “After Thanksgiving, I’ll call her.”
“Tell her to come back.”
“I’ll talk to her.”
“Tell her to come back!”
“Eli, it’s not that simple.”
“Why not?”
Trace sighed. “Because . . . grown-ups always make things complicated.”
Eli’s jaw jutted out. “Then they should stop.”
“Probably.” He opened the door to the porch and felt the chill of winter seep into the house.
“She should be here.”
“She should be here, but she’s not.” He managed a thin smile. “But you and I, we’re solid.” With a gloved finger, he forced Eli to look into his eyes. “Right?”
“Yeah,” his son said without a lot of conviction, and one more time Trace found himself mentally berating his ex-wife for how callously she’d left her son.
“Are you gonna be okay?” he asked, knowing damned well the boy wasn’t.
Eli lifted one shoulder.
Trace took his kid’s hand and helped Eli down the back steps. “Okay, let’s go see Tilly and Ed.” They trudged through the broken path of snow to the truck. “I think Tilly mentioned something about taking you on at checkers again.”
“She’ll lose,” Eli predicted.
“Big talk.”
“I’ll show you.” For the first time that day, Eli almost flashed his smile.
“Don’t show me. Show her.” Feeling that this latest emotional storm had been weathered, Trace bustled his kid into the truck. The boy really did need a mother, but he’d be damned if he’d go out looking for some woman for the sole purpose of helping him raise his son.
No reason for that.