Blindside

three-year-old boy. Some sort of bloody rash? Had his fingernails pierced his palms? Or was it a reaction to a medicine? More than likely, because Sam had sure looked sick. And Alicia hadn’t said anything of it to Miles. Miles was fretting over that, but Alicia was long dead, and Katie knew he’d have to let it go.
    She’d even called together the congregation of the Sinful Children of God and told them how very sorry she was that Reverend and Mrs. McCamy had died in the fire at their home. She wove the same tale, telling them that Reverend McCamy had been consumed with getting Sam, no one really knew why, and then told them the scene of his final disintegration, his complete mental breakdown, and his suicide. There was a lot of grief, a lot of questions, but most of them seemed willing to let life move on, fast.
    She sighed, thinking about her home. Gone, nothing left at all. She had no idea what she was going to do yet and was still just too tired to think about it coherently.
    “I think it’s a good idea, Katie, what we talked about.”
    She jerked up. Miles was talking about marriage, she knew that even though neither of them had said another thing about it since early Thursday morning. She said, “It’s a huge thing, Miles, a really huge thing.”
    “You lost your house.”
    “Yeah, I was just thinking about that.”
    “I’ve got a house, a really big house, and there’s lots of room, for all of us. It’s colonial. Do you like colonial?”
    “Yes,” she said, nothing more, and continued not to look at him.
    Miles looked over at Sam and Keely, who were sitting on the living room floor, their jeaned legs spread wide, rolling three red balls back and forth between them. They were evidently trying to keep the balls inside their legs.
    “You hit it too hard, Sam!”

    Sam said, as he batted a ball back to her, “Pay attention, Keely.”
    “My God, he said that just like I do,” Miles said. “This parent thing, it’s scary when your kid mimics you. Say yes, Katie.”
    “Say yes to what, Mama?”
    Suddenly both small faces were concentrated on them. Miles shrugged at Katie who sighed and nodded. “Okay, what do you guys think of Katie and me getting married? Not that she’s said yes yet. That way you’d be brother and sister and you could stay together.” And that, Katie thought, was the primary reason for getting married, and not a bad reason, really. At least both of them would be motivated to make a happy home for their children. Sam would be hers. And that kiss, she’d felt it all the way to her size nines. The man was potent. That made her smile, but it fell off her face pretty fast. Married, after knowing a man a week.
    No, not married. Remarried.
    Katie had sworn she’d never get married again as long as there was enough breath in her lungs to say no. It was simple, really, she couldn’t trust herself to choose wisely. Just look at what she’d brought home the first time—Carlo Silvestri, a weak, spoiled jerk whose father had paid her a million and a half bucks to get out of his life. Hmm. At least that was a pretty good trade-off. Carlo’s father had saved the pulp mill and a lot of people’s jobs. And of course, Carlo had given her Keely—she’d put up with a dozen jerks for Keely.
    The fact was, bottom line, she didn’t know Miles well. Not even a complete week, and those days had been filled with nonstop fear and violence and adrenaline rushes so extreme that Katie was ready to swear that her blood sugar had plummeted to her toes because there hadn’t been a life-and-death crisis since the McCamy house burned down, its two occupants with it.

    What was a woman with no house to do? Marry a man who did have a house? A colonial?
    It was funny if you looked at it a certain way. She’d saved a little boy, his dad had come to town, lots of bad things had happened, and now he wanted her to marry him. Truth be told, it was the children who’d started it. She’d wished now that they hadn’t heard Sam and Keely talking on the porch, but of course that was what her mother had intended.
    Then again, she couldn’t forget those minutes in her kitchen. Fact was, she’d wanted to jump him; he’d felt just that good.
    Both children were staring from Miles to her and back again. Sam said slowly, “You guys going to get married?”
    “As I said, Sam, she hasn’t said yes yet. So, what do you think? Keely?”
    “Mama, I’ve given this a lot of thought and I think it’s a really