Her nose scrunched up because this point was valid but she didn’t like it.

She still gave into it.

“Right.”

“I got room but I’m also a single man who’s got a girlfriend who spends the night and, I’ll repeat, the finesse I gotta use has gotta be above-board so I can’t just take a kid under my wing without goin’ through certain motions. And my sleepover girlfriend might be frowned upon if I do.”

“Mom and Dad,” she said immediately.

“Yeah,” he replied. “Or Krystal and Bubba or Tate and Laurie.”

“Or Boyd and Liza,” she threw in.

“Right, or Sunny and Shambles,” he suggested.

“We need to make calls,” she whispered.

“We need to make calls.”

“Who first?” she asked.

“Your Mom and Dad.”

She grinned, the sorrow shifting totally out of her face. “They’ll say yes.”

He already knew that.

“Yeah,” he murmured.

Her grin turned into a smile. “They’ll be great with him and we can see him all the time.”

He knew that too.

“Yeah,” he repeated.

“I’ll call them now.”

He twisted his neck, looked at her alarm clock then looked at her.

“It’s just going six thirty.”

“They’ll be up.”

“Will they be up and in the disposition to discuss takin’ on a kid when they not too long ago got their house all to themselves?”

“Yes,” she replied immediately.

He figured that was true too.

“Give me a kiss then grab the phone.”

She smiled even bigger so he felt it on her lips when she gave him her mouth.

When he broke the kiss, she moved in to give him another light one before she rolled out of his arms and reached for the phone.

Chace rolled out of bed and moved to the bathroom.

By the time he walked out, she was sitting at the side of her bed, off the phone, her dancing eyes came direct to him and her mouth moved.

“They said yes.”

Then she smiled big.

Chace smiled back.

Then he walked to the kitchen and made his girl breakfast.

* * * * *

“Chace, I get you but I haven’t had time to assess the situation fully yet. What I already know –” Karena Papadakis started.

She was a Child Welfare Officer and she was standing with Chace outside the Critical Care Ward.

“He’s a deacon at the church,” Chace cut her off to say. “She designs the Sunday programs. He mows the church lawn. Seriously, Karena, Sondra Goodknight won’t even let her twenty-nine year old daughter say ‘frak’, a made up curse word from a Sci-Fi TV show. They’ll do good by this kid.”

He’d already told her he wanted her to place Malachi with the Goodknights and she was rightly and not surprisingly balking due to procedure.

“They’re older,” Karena replied quietly.

“Yeah. They are. Which means they’ve already raised three kids so they know what they’re doin’. One of those kids is the Mom of two boys. One’s the town librarian who has a Master’s Degree. The last one’s in the Army serving our country,” Chace returned.

“They don’t have foster certification,” she told him.

“Then get it for them,” he told her.

“It would require home visits, foster parent classes –” she began.

“The state he’s in, Karena, he’s not gonna be discharged tomorrow,” Chace pointed out. “You have time and what you already know about that kid and the more you’ll find out, I know you, you’ll bust your hump to fast-track it.”

He was not wrong about this. There were people who found jobs. Karena Papadakis found her calling. Her caseload wasn’t exactly light but it also wasn’t what a person in a similar position in a city would be. This gave her plenty of time to do her job the way she’d probably break her back to do it even if her caseload was double. And that was, with care.

She held his eyes and then cautiously reminded him, “Medical reports say this kid may be special needs. The history you gave me tells me he already is.”

“You know I won’t let that kid down. You don’t know this but you can take my word my woman won’t let him down. They’re her parents. She’s got nephews close to his age. Her sister lives in Gnaw Bone. You place this kid with the Goodknights, he goes from livin’ in his own shit in a shed in the middle of nowhere to livin’ in a modified Brady Bunch house ten minutes out of town with a good, close family who, I assure you, can handle special needs. These people got so much goodness, Karena, they can handle anything.”

“Chace,” she said softly, “I’ve heard what you and Faye Goodknight have been doing for this boy but –”

She stopped speaking, her body jerked and her eyes went over his shoulder so Chace twisted his torso to see Silas bustling up.

“Heya,” he dipped his chin to Karena on a grin when he stopped at their side and muttered a further. “Sorry to interrupt.”

Then he turned to Chace and jerked up a box Chace didn’t get a good look at before he kept speaking.

“Lookee here, Chace,” he shook the box. “After church, me and Sondra went real quick to the mall. My Faye says Malachi likes to read lots and since his hands are messed up, got him one of those fancy shmancy eReaders.” He shook the box again. “Guy at the electronics store, he said all he’s gotta do is press a button on the side to turn the page. They even had little stands he can set it in to hold it up so he doesn’t have to hold it himself. So we got him one of those too. ‘Til he gets his hands back, he can keep right on readin’ cause I figure he can press a button.” He lowered the box, dropped his head and studied it murmuring, “Gotta turn it on at the bottom with a slide doohickey but I figure Sondra, Faye, she’s around, or me could set him up to get him goin’.”

Sondra caught up, didn’t seem to notice Karena at all and lifted a bag toward Chace. Chace also didn’t get a chance to look at it before she dropped it and started talking.

“PJs,” she announced. “Warm ones. You think they’d let him put them on?” she asked then didn’t wait for an answer and turned to Karena who she hadn’t yet met and informed her, “Those hospital blankets are thin. He needs warm jammies.” Then her head jerked this way and that, caught on something and she moved quickly away, muttering, “There’s the nurse. I’ll ask her.”