Grace glanced at me, so much tenderness in her expression that it nearly knocked me from my seat. “This is my Mal Pal. Mallory Paloma.”
Mallory gave an extravagant wave of her hand in her mother’s direction, like she was some kind of gameshow hostess. “And this is the best mommy in the whole wide world. She loves me to the sun and the stars and back again because she has a super-fast spaceship.”
She threw open the heavy cover of the pad and flipped through a ton of scribbled on pages.
It looked like . . . like some kind of storybook.
Picture after picture of the same characters with words written across them, some in children’s hand and other’s in a scripty font that my gut instantly told me belonged to Grace.
Mallory pointed at the last page with a drawing. “I just colored this one right now. Mommy’s spaceship goes a million miles an hour and uses fairy dust for gas and can find all of us in the night if she is looking for us because it has super-secret seeking powers.”
She ran her index finger over the lines of the picture she’d drawn, completely excited when she looked up at her mother. “I need you to put in all the words, Mommy. Just like I said. Exactly like that. Don’t mess ’em up. See that fairy dust right there?”
On her knees, she leaned toward me, her voice lowering like she was letting me in on a secret. “I don’t know how to spell it because it has way too many letters and my teacher hasn’t taught me yet. But I’m still a writer even if I don’t write the words.”
The last was absolute.
No room for interpretation.
The child was like a bottled soda that had been shaken and opened under the pressure. Everything flooding from her at the speed of light.
I gave her a tight nod. “I’ll remember that.”
“You better.”
I choked back a laugh.
Okay then.
Grace stifled one too, her smile going soft when she angled her head toward me. “Mallory, this is Mr. Jacobs. He’s going to help us talk to your father so that you’ll be able to sleep here most of the time. He needs to ask you a couple of questions.”
I could hear the air rushing down the kid’s throat as her eyes grew round. “You mean we got our hero?!”
She rammed her hands together, threading her fingers and pushing them up under her chin like she was thanking God for an answered prayer.
Then she got serious. “Guess I got a lot of work to do in the story, Mommy.”
Good God. How was I supposed to handle this child? The fact that they were relying on me for something so important? Her presence alone was about to bowl me over, and there she was, tossing ball after ball.
Those big blue eyes were on me. “Mr. Jacobs, what is your hero name? We got to get it right.”
I cleared the roughness from my voice. “Ian, I suppose.”
Her brow twisted up in some kind of abject horror. “Ian? That’s a terrible hero name.”
Of course, it was. Maybe the kid was reading me clearer than I thought.
She tapped her chin and looked at her drawing before she gasped out a thrill. “I got it! How about Ian-Zian the Great?”
“I’m not sure Mr. Jacobs wants to be a part of our story, Mal Pal,” Grace hedged, that knowing gaze bouncing between the two of us, almost apologetic every time it landed on me.
I kind of wanted to shout at her. To tell her to quit calling me that. To tell her this was all going to be too much.
I’d made a mistake, coming here.
Hell, I’d made one that first night. Chasing after a girl when I didn’t play chase.
Mallory looked at her mother like she had lost her mind.
“Why would he not want to be a part of our story? Our story is the funnest, most best adventure in the whole universe.”
Her attention darted to me, voice so matter-of-fact that this time there was no stopping the laugh. “It’s going to be a bestseller.”
“I have no doubt,” I told her.
She shrugged a little shoulder. “Doubts are for worriers.”
This child was something else.
Grace suddenly shrieked. “Gah, Sophie, no!”
She flew around, and I shifted just in time to see a child who wasn’t more than a baby running into the kitchen, three crayons fisted in her chubby hand.
All three tips were being dragged across the wall.
She squealed with laughter as her mother chased her.
“Sophie! No. Coloring is only for paper.”
She swiped the kid off her feet, but not before she’d left squiggly lines of blue, red, and orange on a quarter of the wall about a foot from the ground.
“I cowar.” She was all grins and small teeth.
“Yes, you can color, but only on paper.”
Mallory shook her head. “My little sister is nothin’ but a handful. Ask Grams.”