“He won’t care. Will he, Adam?”
Adam shook his head. “No, he won’t care if I pull your weeds.”
She knew better. “I’ll tell you what,” she said, rather than argue. “You go get hold of your dad and ask him. If he says it’s okay, I’ll hire you both.”
“Okay,” they said at the same time and darted across the street.
Hope watched them disappear and didn’t believe there was even a slim chance that the boys would come back. Her thoughts returned to Myron as she got busy pulling the fireweeds choking the garden under the front window. Earlier, someone from the sheriff’s office had called to say that Myron’s Winnebago had disappeared and they thought he’d left town. Hope knew better, but she hadn’t said anything. The last time she’d gone for help, she’d been sent into Dylan’s office. She’d rather face harassment by Myron than gaze across a room and see Dylan’s blank face looking back at her.
Myron drove her insane, but at least he didn’t hurt her. She tugged a big weed from the ground and tos
sed it on a pile. She would rather be driven crazy by a demented dwarf than have her heart continually crushed by Dylan’s disinterest.
She glanced up as the boys returned.
“Adam’s dad said it was okay.”
Hope couldn’t believe Dylan would allow his son around her. Not after he’d told her to stay away from him. “Did he really say that?” she asked Adam.
He looked her right in the eyes and said, “Yeah, he did.”
“And he said you could work for me? You mentioned my name?”
“Yes.”
Surprised and perhaps a tiny bit relieved that maybe Dylan didn’t think she was such a horrible person after all, she took off her gloves and dropped them on the ground. “Well, okay. Follow me.” She led them into the house and gave them each a pair of pink rubber gloves she used to wash dishes. She poured them iced tea with lots of sugar; then they went back outside and got to work. Wally talked almost nonstop, but Adam was much more quiet than usual.
“Hope, I have a question,” Wally announced as he tackled a weed almost as tall as he was.
She looked up. “Go ahead, but I don’t have to answer if I don’t feel like it.”
“Okay.” He tossed the weed onto the pile. “Can I drive your car sometime?”
She glanced at her Porsche parked in the driveway. “Yes.” Wally’s face broke into a big smile, until she added, “When you’re sixteen and have your license.”
He sighed. “Oh, man.” Then, together, he and Adam worked on a weed that took both of them to pull it from the ground.
As Hope knelt in a different bed a few feet away, she watched Adam out of the corner of her eye. She watched him closely, and over the course of the next hour, he looked at her whenever he thought she wasn’t looking at him, his brows lowered over his green eyes as if he were seriously trying to figure something out.
“Hope?”
“Yes, Wally?”
“How come you don’t have kids?”
She placed her gloved hands on her thighs and gazed at the boys from beneath the brim of her hat. Like always when she was around these two, she didn’t know exactly how to answer their questions.
“Is it ‘cause you’re not married?” Wally wanted to know.
Adam finally spoke. “You dope. You don’t have to be married to have kids.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Nuh-huh. My mom and dad had me and they weren’t married,” Adam announced, and Hope was glad to hear he knew now and that he seemed okay.
Wally looked his friend over. “Really?”
“Yep.”