Chapter Two

The kids ran around the meadow, chasing each other. Paul and Millie and Rosie and Zoe had plenty of friends now, but they still stuck together like glue. They were sitting quietly, whispering, when I snuck up behind them and started tickling Millie.

Little pistol. She whipped around grabbed my legs and sent me crashing to the ground. Damn, I felt that all over. The three amigos jumped up and took off and I just gave up, rolling onto my back and staring at the clouds.

Jules joined me.

“Emmy, can we talk?”

I sat up, brushing grass out of my hair. She sure sounded serious . . .

“You know David and I are heading out next week. Out west. He’s got this itch to take off again and wants me to come. Millie and Rosie are going to stay with Alison and Brad, and well . . . EJ wants to go with us.” Jules stared down at her lap for a moment, then dodged my eyes again, looking out across the meadow.

Huh. This was going to be interesting. And by interesting, I meant that Abby would throw a fit. She wanted that daughter of hers to be safe, and this was so not safe. Well, on the other hand, it might be . . . we’d really had no intelligence from that area in years. It could mean that no one was out there, or that things had settled down like they did here, or it could be a hot mess.

I thought about this for a minute, wondering exactly what to say. Jules beat me to it.

“She’s talking to Abby right now.”

Crap. Yeah, I could see something was going on. All the way over at the kitchen shelter. This was not the way I would have handled things, but EJ sure had a mind of her own. Once she got an idea, she put it into motion.

Kinda like her mother.