The Next Always by Nora Roberts

ought to help her with that.
    She’d painted her door a deep blue, had a brass Celtic knot knocker centered on it.
    She opened it directly onto the living room with a small-scale sofa in blue and green stripes, a couple of chairs in the green. The remains of a multi–Matchbox car wreck scattered on the hardwood.
    The bookshelves he’d helped build took up an entire wall. It pleased him to see she made good use of them by crowding them with books, family photos, a few trinkets.
    “Come on back to the kitchen.”
    He stopped in the doorway of a small room with the walls covered with maps and posters. Colorful cubbies held toys, the ones that weren’t littering the floor. He studied child-sized bean bag chairs, little tables, and the debris three young boys made.
    “Nice.”
    “It gives them a place to share, and get away from me.”
    She continued back, passed the bolt-hole of a powder room under the stairs and into the combination kitchen/dining room.
    White appliances and dark oak cabinets. Fresh summer fruit in a wooden bowl on the short run of white countertop between the stove and refrigerator, the refrigerator covered with kids’ drawings and a monthly planner calendar. Four chairs around the square wooden table.
    “The kids’ll be in the back. Give me a second.”
    She went to the door, called through the screen. “Hi, guys!”
    There were whoops and shouts, and from his angle Beckett saw her face just light up.
    “Clare! Why didn’t you call me to come get you?”
    “I got a ride home. No problem.”
    Beckett heard the scrape of a chair, then saw Alva Ridenour come to the door.
    He’d had her for algebra, freshman year, and calculus his senior. As she had then, she wore silver glasses perched on her nose, and her hair—now brilliantly white—pulled back in a no-nonsense bun.
    “Why, Beckett Montgomery. I didn’t know you were running a taxi service.”
    “Anywhere you want to go, Miz Ridenour. The meter’s never running for you.”
    She opened the screen as the boys rushed in to assault Clare with tales of the day’s adventures, questions, pleas, complaints.
    Alva scooted around them, gave Beckett a poke in the shoulder. “When’s that inn going to be finished?”
    “It’ll be a while yet, but when it is I’ll give you a personal tour.”
    “You’d better.”
    “Do you need any help with your car?”
    “No. My husband managed to get it into the shop. How’s your mama?”
    “Busy, and keeping us busier.”
    “As she should. Nobody wants a pack of lazy boys. Clare, I’m going to get on.”
    “I’ll drive you home, Miz Ridenour.”
    “It’s two houses down, Beckett. Do I look infirm?”
    “No, ma’am.”
    “You boys.” She used her former teacher’s voice, and the three kids fell silent. “Give your mother a chance to take a breath. I want to hear all about the first day of school when I see you next. And Liam? You pick up those cars in the living room.”
    “But Murphy—”
    “You brought them down, you pick them up.” She winked at Clare. “I’ll be on my way.”
    “Thanks, Alva.”
    “Oh, I promised them cookies and milk if they didn’t fight for a half hour. They made it.”
    “Cookies and milk it is.”
    “Did you fight with your brothers today?” Alva asked Beckett.
    “Not in the last half hour.”
    She cackled out a laugh as she left.
    Murphy tugged on Beckett’s hand. “Do you wanna see my Power Rangers?”
    “You got Red Ranger from Mystic Force?”
    Murphy’s eyes widened. He could only nod rapidly before running from the room.
    “Wash your hands,” Clare called after him. “Now you’ve done it,” she murmured to Beckett. “Wash up,” she told the other boys, “if you want cookies.”
    They obviously did, as they dashed off.
    “Power Rangers are Murphy’s current obsession. He has action figures, DVDs, pajamas, T-shirts, costumes, transports. We had a Power Ranger theme for his birthday in April.”
    “I used to watch them on TV. I was about