your approach.”
Thirty days!
“That’s all, Miss Davis.”
Impossible! Quincee opened her mouth to protest, her heart beating high in her throat. She couldn’t do without her car for thirty days. She had to have the freedom to drive. There was too much to do within the next week, even. She had too many directions to run. Why, she and the kids were moving, for Pete’s sake!
“Judge Paxton, I have children to care for. I can’t do without my car.”
“Then you should think of your children the next time you’re speeding, Miss Davis.”
“But I must—”
Judge Paxton’s glinting expression dared her to make one more protest. He was heartless. She closed her mouth, fighting the flashing anger that wanted to erupt. It was all just too much.
I can do all things through Christ… she began. It had been her hope and promise for the last year. But she didn’t feel very capable at the moment. How could she have allowed herself to get those speeding tickets? What was she to do without her driving license?
The court clerk called the next name on his list. Quincee had no option but to turn and give the clerk all the information he asked for and leave. That or face a contempt of court charge, she supposed.
Judge Paxton had already moved to his next case.
Chapter One
“Quincee…”
The plaintive call came from five-year-old Kerri beyond the opened kitchen door. She and seven-year-old Kyle were in the backyard exploring their new surroundings.
The screen door slammed after Kerri as the child entered the kitchen. “Quincee, you gotta come.”
“What is it, Kerri bear?” High on a stepladder, Quincee wiped out the top cupboard. The ancient, once white cupboards hadn’t been cleaned in a dog’s age, the house sitting empty for the past year after its former occupant had…gone to live elsewhere.
Out of concern for the children, she’d chosen to use that explanation instead of telling them of another death. They were still dealing with the grief of losing their mother.
Quincee had bought the tiny house in this old Independence, Missouri, neighborhood, looking for a measure of security for her and the kids. They’d moved in yesterday. It had cost her every dime of her savings and a borrowed thousand from her friend Laura for closing costs, but it was worth it. Although most of its citizens were older, of grandparenting age, the neighborhood was solid and peaceful.
The house was old, too, built sometime in the early twenties, she thought, and in great need of repair. Too small, really, with only two bedrooms. She and Kerri were sharing. But none of that mattered now. They’d be happy here. She’d see to it.
“That man wants to see you.” Kerri’s tone was edged. Everything was dramatic to Kerri.
“What man?” She stretched to reach the back top corners, scrubbing vigorously. It might take her the whole morning to get the built-up gunk out, but by gum, she’d have it done and their things put away by lunchtime.
“By the hedge,” Kerri said.
Their neighbor, no doubt. The big dusty-blue Victorian on the other side of the hedge, with the long wraparound front porch, had appeared very quiet all last week as she’d come and gone. But most people were home on a Saturday.
“Did he say what he wants?”
“Um, uh, I think Kyle…”
Quincee turned to glance down at her niece. The June sunlight streaming through the door highlighted the moonlight curls around Kerri’s face, framing her delicate, vulnerable features. Kerri’s wide blue eyes shone with worry. Something really troubled her.
“What is it, sweetie?”
“Um, Kyle and me picked some cherries in that tree back there.” Kerri pointed to an unseen spot beyond the visible. “We didn’t know we couldn’t.”
“In the neighbor’s yard?”
A slight tremble of Kerri’s bottom lip told Quincee what she needed to know.
Quincee climbed down and tossed her dishcloth into the sudsy sink. If the children had done something wrong, she’d apologize and hope to make a friend. She needed all the friends she could get these days.
“All right, let’s go,” she said calmly. Grabbing a towel to dry her hands, she followed Kerri outside. Whatever this was about, they’d get it straightened out. She planned to build a solid home here, and a good relationship with the neighbors was very much a part of her plan.
Hands shoved into his pockets, Kyle stood against the tall hedge looking fierce. Quincee recognized that look. Kyle always hid his worries and upsets behind a deep frown.
He and Kerri had suffered too many of them this last year.
The ancient privet hedge topped her by half a foot, marking the boundary line between the small property she now owned from the huge yard next door. She surmised it had been planted thirty years before, at least.
Not very tall, Quincee couldn’t see over, but she spotted the back of a man’s dark head. At the hedge’s base, child-size gaps between the old plants positively invited a peek into the world beyond. It wasn’t hard for her to imagine the children crawling through, wanting to explore.
She gave Kyle’s shoulder a reassuring pat.
“Hello?” she said in her friendliest voice, the one she used to welcome her fifth-grade classroom on a new week of school. “I understand the children have—”
The neighbor turned, his square chin practically sitting on top of the neatly clipped hedge. Quincee stopped speaking abruptly. For the briefest moment, she thought she was hallucinating. Surely, it couldn’t be. But it was.
Although unshaven, his dark hair unruly, the man had cool, unforgettable gray eyes.
“Judge Paxton!” Her voice nearly strangled in her throat.
Her first thought was that he looked much younger than he did in his judge’s robes. Her second thought was that she was in trouble yet again. She nearly groaned aloud. His scowl expressed a decided unhappiness over a situation she was only now beginning to understand might be a major infraction.
And he had no heart.
His straight brows lowered another quarter of an inch, his nod of recognition a reactionary one. “Miss…Fluff…er, Miss…”
Miss Fluff? He thought of her as Miss Fluff?
Had it been her looks, then, with her strawberry-red hair curling around her face like feathers, or that she’d worn a bright lipstick the day she’d gone to court? Or the misfortune of her driving record?
The resentment from that day in court rose in her chest like a flood.
Quincee straightened and stood as tall as her five feet would let her. She may be small of stature, but she wasn’t quite without an authority of her own. Of sorts. At least with children.
She cleared her throat. “Quincee Davis, Judge Paxton.”
“Ah, yes. Quincee Davis.” He blinked before his face melted into a cool demeanor. “Are you by any chance in charge of these children?”
“Yep.” She gathered her forces to answer with in-your-face pride. She would not allow an intimidation of his position to rob her or the children of her protective shield. Whatever they’d done, they were good kids. They didn’t normally get into trouble. “They belong to me. This is Kerri and Kyle.”
“I see. What are you doing here, may I ask?”
“We just moved into this house.”
His jaw tightened as he stared at