Read Online Like a Bee to Honey by Jennifer Beckstrand - Free Book Online Page B

and waved at her.
    Rose hesitated and looked up at the sky. Much as she wanted to be home before dark, she couldn’t abandon Josiah or Suvie’s poor, temporarily motherless children. Josiah might very well manage to burn down Suvie’s house or at least cause a major flood before Suvie got home. Josiah seemed to have a strained relationship with water in general.
    Rose pressed her lips together. Her own selfish fears didn’t matter. The babies needed her. Josiah needed her. She would push aside her misgivings to help them out and deal with the consequences later.
    â€œWould you like some help?” she said, trying valiantly to ignore the thumping of her heart against her ribs.
    He looked like a dying man who’d just been granted a few more hours of life. He didn’t even try to pretend he didn’t need her. “I would be so grateful.”
    Rose gave him a half smile and marched past him into the living room. With Aaron clinging to him like a burr, Josiah shut the door and shuffled a few steps toward her.
    The most urgent problem first. Rose pulled the bubbling pan from the burner and turned off the LP gas stove. She lifted the lid, and steam ascended to the ceiling. A mushy glob of what used to be noodles sat in the bottom of the pan. The bottom was burned black, the pan ruined. She’d come just in time.
    Still bouncing his crying niece on his hip, Josiah twitched his lips sheepishly. “Mac and cheese,” he said.
    Rose tried to be encouraging. “It would have been delicious.”
    Still sniffling and fussing, Aaron let go of Josiah’s leg and headed straight for Rose with his arms outstretched. “Hold you,” he said.
    Rose picked up Aaron and propped him on her hip. She pulled a tissue from the box on Suvie’s kitchen cupboard and mopped up Aaron’s face. He wasn’t screaming anymore, but Josiah was right. He was definitely stinky. Even the dirty diaper wasn’t the most pressing problem. With Aaron in her arms, Rose went to the closed door. Water was still seeping out from under it, threatening a fuzzy pink blanket on the floor. The door was locked.
    Josiah seemed to notice the water for the first time. “ Ach . It’s leaking. Aaron threw something in the toilet, and it clogged. I locked the door so he couldn’t throw anything else in there.”
    â€œDo you have a key?”
    He grimaced. “I didn’t think that far ahead.”
    Rose pointed to the top of the door frame. “We leave our bathroom keys on that little ledge,” she said, loud enough to be heard over the screaming baby. The poor thing. She was obviously starving.
    Rose was too short to reach, but Josiah was plenty tall. With the baby, he tiptoed through the puddle of water and felt along the top of the frame until he burst into a smile. “Here it is.”
    Rose kissed Aaron on the cheek and set him on the sofa next to Alvin. He started screaming again, but Rose needed both hands. She quickly unlocked the door, handed the key to Josiah, and splashed into the bathroom. Water trickled out of the overflowing bowl as the toilet ran and ran without shutting itself off. Rose jiggled the handle, then lifted the lid to the tank and pulled up the float. The toilet stopped humming, and the water stopped running. She opened the cupboard above the toilet and said a prayer of thanks when she found a stack of fluffy bath towels. Suvie probably wouldn’t be too happy about her nice towels being used to wipe up toilet water, but she wouldn’t be too happy about her living room flooding either. Rose would have wanted a dry floor.
    Rose spread four towels around the toilet and sopped up the water. The fuzzy pink blanket was safe.
    Josiah drew his brows together. “I didn’t even notice the water. I should unclog the toilet before Suvie gets home. I did Bitsy’s sink. How hard can a toilet be?”
    Rose wasn’t sure what Suvie would want, but