She whirled and hurried into the house, where she plopped Adam onto the counter between the kitchen and the dining room, and filled a small bowl with water and ice cubes. "Put your finger in the water, Adam, and it will feel better, I promise."
Adam, his tears drying as he tremulously took a deep breath, did as he was told. Bryn glanced over the counter to see that Keith and Brian, their eyes frightened as they stared at their brother, had followed her.
She grimaced,then gave them an encouraging smile. "It's not that bad,guys , really. I think it must have been a little honeybee."
Brian compressed his lips for a minute,then lowered his eyes. Bryn frowned as she watched him
"What's the matter, Brian?"
"He...he..."
"He what, Brian?"
Brian mouthed the words behind Adam's back, his eyes stricken. "He's not going to die, is he, Aunt Bryn?"
"No!" Bryn exclaimed."Of course not!" She lowered her own lashes and pretended to turn around to survey the contents of the refrigerator.
It was strange that Brian had come up with the question. It seemed as if all three of the boys had adjusted so well in the past year and a half. They accepted her as their figure of authority, and they were touchingly ready to give her their trust and their love.
But maybe it wasn't so strange. Sue had died of a case of pneumonia that had defied medical science when Adam was just a year old; Jeff had followed her in the reckless accident less than two years later.
No matter how well-adjusted the boys seemed, it was natural that they should worry.
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And natural that they should cling to her, fearing sometimes that she would leave them, too...
She pulled out a pack of hot dogs and turned back to smile at the three; Adam with his pain-puckered and rosy cheeks; Brian and Keith, both pale with uncertainty.
"Hey! Why the long faces?Adam, you just keep your finger in that water--" "Too cold!"
"Okay, take it out for a minute, but then put it back in. Keith, Brian,go and take your baths. Then we'll have hot dogs and ice cream and I'll play your Muppet tape, and then everybody can go to bed.
Tomorrow's a school day." And, she added silently, I'm going to have to finish up those last proofs and run out and buy some new tights. I don't have a pair left without a dozen holes.
Three hours later the boys were all bathed--including Adam--the hot dogs had been long-consumed and The Great Muppet Caper was drawing to a close.
Brian was on her left side, Keith on her right. And Adam was perched on her lap.
A painful shaft of memory suddenly ripped through Bryn, and she bit her lip so the boys wouldn't notice the tears that had stung her eyes.
She loved them so very much.
And she felt so fiercely loyal to them. Partially because they were beautiful kids and partially because they had been Jeff'sAnd no matter what happened, no matter how she had to struggle, no matter what she had to give up, she would never, never, let them down.
Jeff had never let her down.
She had been only sixteen when her mother and father had died in a freak mountain slide on the ski slopes. Sixteen, lost, bewildered, and stricken with grief. The only certainty in her life had been Jeff, and Jeff had battled for her. He fought distant aunts and uncles, and he had fought the courts.
He had taught her to accept their parents' deaths, and he had somehow gone to school, kept a job and created a home for the two of them, until she had been ready to leave for college. He had never failed her; he had been only three years older, but no girl, no job, no social event, had ever come before her.
Even when he and Sue had married, she had never been made to feel like an outsider. She had waited at the hospital when each one of the boys had been born. And she had been the one to stay with Sue each time she had come home with a new baby.
No, she would never let anyone stop her from loving the kids, or giving them the same loyalty and devotion that their natural parents would have given them.
Not even a man like Joe.
She had always considered herself to be confident and self-assured, but Joe had swept her off her feet.
He had come to Tahoe for a vacation when the football season had ended, and from the first moment he had seen her, he had pursued her with a vengeance.
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Bryn had been amused at first, accepting the situation with the proverbial grain of salt. She didn't consider herself particularly beautiful, but she was aware that there was something about her trim, wiry form and slightly tilted "cat eyes" that made her appealing to the opposite sex. She wasn't sure if she liked the attraction that she held. It was often uncomfortable to know that the male of the species looked upon her and wondered not what she was like as a person, but what she would be like in bed. For a long time she laughed with good humor when Joe tried every compliment and trick in the book to get her to go out with him.