Read Online A Baby by Easter by Lois Richer - Free Book Online

didn’t eat a good breakfast. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. More than half of North Americans skip breakfast.” Darla told him, stuffing her last package into the trunk.
    â€œHalf?” Susannah sputtered.
    David looked at her. She was trying to hide her laughter.
    â€œYes, half,” Darla insisted.
    â€œThen I guess I’m one of those statistics,” Susannah told her. “I’m starving, too. And your stomach is growling.” She giggled out loud and soon Darla was giggling with her.
    Shaking his head, David led them to a restaurant and left Susannah to deal with Darla’s insistence on chocolatecake while he scoured the menu for himself. He’d forgotten how nice it was to relax over a meal.
    Susannah didn’t insist Darla choose anything, he discovered. She commented on the results of certain choices, and then left the decision totally up to Darla, who glanced at him for approval.
    â€œYou decide,” David said quietly.
    And she did, visibly gaining confidence as she discarded the chocolate cake in favor of another choice.
    â€œI don’t like soup,” she told the server. “It’s messy. Can I have something else?”
    They settled on a salad to go with her cheeseburger and fries. Usually David ordered something she could munch on right away, but Darla seemed perfectly content to talk as they waited for their food. After a moment she excused herself and went to wash her hands.
    â€œHow do you do it?” David asked Susannah the moment his sister was out of hearing range. “She hasn’t tantrumed with you once, though I thought we’d have one in the store.”
    â€œI did, too,” Susannah confessed with a grin. “And if she had, I would have sat there and waited it out.”
    â€œReally?” He couldn’t imagine sitting through one of Darla’s tantrums.
    â€œIt’s a behavior she’s learned, David. She needs time to unlearn it.” She shrugged. “If we make her responsible for her actions, she’ll soon realize that the results she gets are determined by her. I want her to learn independence.”
    â€œWe had a big argument about her bedtime last night,” he admitted. “She thinks she should stay up longer. Maybe she should,” he admitted. “I guess I still think of her as a little kid.”
    â€œShe is in some ways.” Susannah sipped her lemonade.“Why don’t you let her choose a time on the condition that she has to get up in the morning when her alarm clock rings without your help? Make her responsible.”
    â€œGood idea.” He sipped his coffee. “I can’t believe you learned all this caring for the elderly.”
    â€œSome of it,” she admitted. “But most of what I know about behavior, I learned in our foster home. And I took some university classes for a semester. They helped. I’m going to take some more. I want to get a degree in psychology.”
    He was intrigued by her. More than a boss should be.
    â€œThe bathroom is really pretty,” Darla told them as she slipped back into her seat. “Lots of red.”
    Their food arrived and conversation became sporadic. David dug into his steak, then paused to notice that Susannah picked certain items off her plate and set them aside but eagerly bit into a sour pickle.
    â€œSo it’s true what they say about pregnancies and pickles,” he teased.
    She flushed a rich ruby flood of color that tinted her skin from the V neckline of her sweater to the roots of her hair. Finally she nodded.
    â€œIt’s true. For me anyway.”
    â€œI don’t like pickles,” Darla said. “You can have mine, Susannah.”
    â€œThank you.” Susannah laid the pickles on one slice of toast, then spread peanut butter on the other. She put them together, cut the whole thing in half and then took a bite.
    â€œThat’s lunch?”
    She blushed again when