Read Online For Love and Family by Victoria Pade - Free Book Online Page A

“And I can cook everybody’s on one stick!”
    â€œGo to it,” Hunter allowed.
    Johnny stabbed three of the fluffy confections on a single stick, while Terese and Hunter sat back and watched. When the marshmallows were toasty brown, her nephew offered Terese the first one.
    Before she could take it, it fell to the ground.
    â€œOh, no!” Johnny lamented as if it were the end of the world.
    Not wanting him to be disappointed, Terese said, “That’s okay,” picked the marshmallow up, blew it off and popped it into her mouth.
    It wasn’t the smartest move she’d ever made. There were still grains of soil stuck to it and she couldn’t help grimacing slightly when she felt and tasted the residual grit.
    Hunter must have caught her expression because she heard him laugh. But Johnny didn’t seem to notice.
    â€œIsn’t it good?” he asked eagerly.
    â€œIt is,” Terese assured him after she’d choked it down.
    Hunter was sitting on the log that was at a ninety-degree angle to hers and he handed her the bottle of water she’d been drinking, leaning close enough to say, “You could have let that one go and had one of the others.”
    â€œI wanted the full experience of what nature has to offer,” she lied.
    But he knew better and merely laughed again. Not in a way that made fun of her, though. It was more a laugh that said he was enjoying himself. And so was she. In spite of the gritty marshmallow.
    Her second taste of Johnny’s cooking was an improvement over the first, but after that she’d had enough. Two marshmallows were Hunter’s limit as well, but Johnny was a bottomless pit when it came to the sweets. He would have gone on toasting and eating marshmallows until the bag was empty except that his father stopped him at six.
    Even so, between the hot chocolate and the marshmallows, the little boy was full of sugar-induced energy that left him unable to sit still once his marshmallow roasting was over, and he turned to jumping off the logs his father and Terese were using as seats.
    â€œHow about skipping some rocks in the pond?” Hunter suggested to divert him. “It looks different in the moonlight than it does in the day.”
    Throwing rocks apparently had an allure all its own because Johnny didn’t need more than that to inspire him. He set about collecting rocks until he had all his pockets filled with them. Then he went to the edge of the pond.
    â€œCome and watch, T’rese!” he called to her.
    â€œWe can see you from here,” Hunter called back before Terese could comply.
    She didn’t mind that he’d gotten her out of it, though. She liked sitting there by the fire.
    With him.
    She didn’t want to think too much about that.
    Besides, he was right; they could see Johnny from where they were.
    After watching and complimenting a few ofJohnny’s tosses, Terese thought she could also take the opportunity to satisfy a bit of curiosity about what her nephew had said earlier in regard to Hunter going to Europe.
    â€œSo you have a trip planned?” she asked, glancing from son back to father.
    Hunter slid from his log to sit on the ground and lean his back against it instead, bracing his elbows there, too, and stretching his legs out in front of her to avoid the fire.
    â€œI did have,” he said. “I was all set to go this coming Saturday, as a matter of fact.”
    â€œBut now you aren’t going?”
    â€œI’m thinkin’ no,” he said quietly, watching his son and frowning slightly.
    â€œBecause of Johnny’s health condition?” Terese guessed.
    Hunter nodded slowly. “I was going to leave him with Willy and Carla. They think of him as their own and I’ve never worried about him when he’s with them. But now… Well, what if he falls or something—the way he did last week—and starts bleeding and I’m halfway around the