“Well, they don’t live with me and until you’re eighty pounds and Dr. Lambert says it’s okay, you’ll use them.”
“It’s not fair,” Mallory pouted, her lower lip protruding as she crossed her arms over her chest.
“You know, that’s right: life isn’t fair,” Hattie declared as they’d each reluctantly strapped in. “But for now, this is the law. Mine. And the state of Montana’s, so it’s no use arguing.”
“I hate booster seats!” Mallory declared and McKenzie echoed the sentiment.
“I know. Oh, do I know,” Hattie said.
Mallory had maintained her bad mood for the entire ride while McKenzie, after pointing out which classmates had escaped their booster seat regulations, had seemed to forget the discussion and looked out the window and drawn on the condensation collecting on the glass.
Now, they were unbuckling their restraints and scrambling to get out of the car. The girls loved going to Wild Wills, not for the food, which they both assured her was far less appetizing than the menu at McDonald’s, but because of the decorations.
“I’m gonna see Grizz first,” McKenzie claimed, mentioning the gigantic stuffed grizzly bear that stood near the door of the restaurant and was always dressed for the season. She took off, pink cowboy boots flashing, unzipped coat billowing like a cape, dark curls bouncing as she ran down the snowy sidewalk. Like a shot, she was gone, swallowed up by the crowd.
“Hey! Wait!” Grabbing Mallory’s hand, Hattie, the strap of her purse slung over her shoulder, ran to keep up with her daughter. “Slow down! We hold hands at the street! Remember? McKenzie!” Attempting not to panic, cutting through pedestrians wrapped in their winter coats, she was running, dragging Mallory, worried that McKenzie, in her need to always be “the first,” would forget the rules and barrel headlong into the street where traffic was bottlenecked, but still moving, still dangerous. “McKenzie Grayson! Stop right there!”
McKenzie looked over her shoulder. Damn it, she knew better! And really, she probably wouldn’t run into the street, but she could slip and fall, and the whole idea of her running off was a worry.
Hattie nearly tripped over the leash of a fortyish woman walking a greyhound who was currently straining to sniff the base of a lamppost.
“Watch out!” the woman snapped, her nose red with the cold, her eyes accusing behind fogging glasses.
Hattie ignored the warning and kept running through the throng. “McKenzie!”
She’d just about reached her, when McKenzie, realizing she was getting near the crosswalk, tried to slow down and slipped, her boots sliding over a thin patch of ice.
Down she went, legs flying, hair whipping around her face, skidding toward the street where snow and slush were piled and dirty vehicles rolled past, their tires spraying water.
Hattie leaped forward just as a big, gloved hand grabbed hold of one of McKenzie’s flailing arms. A half second later, she was pulled to her feet.
“Whoa there, cowgirl,” Cade said to his niece as he hauled her into his arms and Hattie, still dragging Mallory, almost slammed into him.
“Thank God,” she whispered as McKenzie, surprised to be rescued by her uncle, began to sob, probably more out of embarrassment than pain.
“Hey, it’s all right,” he said, more tenderly than Hattie would have ever expected. His jacket had seen better days, his jeans were faded, and he hadn’t shaved since she’d last seen him, and still he exuded that sexy confidence she’d always found irritatingly attractive. And yet he seemed at ease holding his niece.
“Are you okay?” Hattie asked her daughter, fighting back the urge to scream at her. Her heart was tattooing with fear.
McKenzie sniffed and nodded as she blinked against tears, but she didn’t break down. “My leg hurts.”
“Bad?” Cade asked.
“Kinda. No . . . it’s okay.”
Where Mallory would have been screaming bloody murder, McKenzie, stoic like the Graysons, seemed to have a high threshold for pain.
“Will ice cream help?” Hattie asked.
She brightened immediately. “Yes!” Then, “I’m sorry, Mom.”
“Okay, we’ll go up to the ice-cream parlor, but it has to be after dinner and you can’t just go running off like you’re three years old again, okay?” Hattie said.
“I wasn’t going to go into the street,” she said, wiggling to the ground.
McKenzie was fearless and more than a little bullheaded. Though she seemed to be growing out of her impulsiveness, every once in a while she reverted, as she had today.
As the stoplight changed, the woman with the greyhound walked past. Her lips were pinched as if she’d just sucked on a lemon, and the look she sent Hattie was meant to remind her that she’d lost control, bothered the woman and her dog, and quite possibly was a horrid excuse for a mother.