Send No Flowers

First priority was to find them lodging, someplace where the boys could fish and hike and generally soak up Mother Nature, which she had been promising to let them do for months. Not too isolated, not too crowded, not too far from home. Woods, mountain air. This place had been perfect. Now she might have to take what she could find. Rescheduling the trip would cause innumerable problems. She had arranged with the boys' teachers to excuse them this week. Undoing all that would be a pain. The clerk at the main desk of the lodge listened sympathetically when she told him about the storm damage the cabin had sustained. He scratched behind his ear. "'Course, those places up there on that ridge are privately owned." "I know that, but I've already called my friend who owns it. She gave me permission to see that things are cleaned up and the window repaired. She'll pay the bill. Could you find someone to take care of that for me?" "Sure, sure. See no problem with that. I can have someone out this afternoon to get started." "Thank you. Now we need a place to stay. We'd like to rent one of your cabins for the week." "This week?" Alicia mentally counted to ten. "Yes, this week. Right now." He must have had a terrible itch behind his ear, for he was scratching it again. "Don't have any available, little lady." Alicia clenched her teeth against the chauvinistic slur and instructed Adam to keep his fingers out of the ears of the buffalo head mounted over the mantel of the lodge's fireplace. She tried cajoling. "Surely you have something. I don't care how large or how small--" "Nothing," he said emphatically, and flipped open a reservation book. "Let's see here.... We'll have a cabin that sleeps six on December fifteenth. Not many folks come up here around Christmastime, you see." When he said nothing, he meant nothing. She spent a half hour plugging the pay telephone with quarters trying to find them an alternate recreation spot within driving distance. She wasted her quarters and her time. "I'm sorry, but there's nothing I can do." She placed a consoling hand on each boy's shoulder. "We'll have to go home and plan another trip." "That's not fair. You promised!" "David, I know it doesn't seem fair. I was looking forward to this week off too." "No, you weren't. You don't care if we have to go home. You didn't want to camp. You're a silly girl. You'regladeverything's been ruined!" "Now listen to me, young man--" The jeep braked just a few feet beyond the porch of the lodge and Pierce stepped out of it. He looked breathtakingly handsome in a plaid flannel shirt with a down vest over it. "What's going on?" Before Alicia could open her mouth, Adam and David ran toward him spouting a barrage of broken sentences that more or less told him what had happened. Over their heads, he looked at Alicia. "David," Pierce said, fishing in the tight pocket of his jeans for a dollar bill, "will you and Adam go into the lodge and buy me a newspaper, please?" "Come on, Adam," David said wearily. "They're gonna talk grown-up again and don't want us to hear." As Adam followed his brother through the door, he was heard to say, "Remember when Carter had to talk grown-up to Mom? They made us go away all the time." Embarrassed, Alicia looked up at Pierce, but he was smiling. "I think they're making kids smarter these days." She didn't feel much like smiling, but she managed a wobbly one. "I think so too." "Now, what happened?" Slowly, and in more coherent detail, she explained what had happened. "TheBrown, Sandra is the author of 'Send No Flowers' with ISBN 9780553576016 and ISBN 0553576011.