“Honey, it’s Harley. Where are you hurt?”

“My face.”

“Where on your face?”

“By my eye.”

Harley’s heart jumped, fell. “Let me see.”

“Can’t,” came the muffled reply.

“Why?”

“It’s bleeding too much and I don’t want to get stitches.”

“You might not need stitches. Faces and heads bleed a lot when they’re cut. You might just need some ice. Let me see. Okay?”

Eventually, with a lot of coaxing, Harley was able to get Molly to look up and uncover her face. Blood crusted Molly’s hairline and coated her temple, but as Harley gently dabbed at the gash between the girl’s eyebrow and hairline, she could see that the bleeding was slowing, and the wound, maybe an inch, inch and a half, was deep but at least not to the bone.

“How did a snowball do this?” Harley asked, using her thumb to wipe away some of the blood to get a better look at the cut.

Mack didn’t immediately answer.

Harley saw Molly’s gaze dart to her brother.

“Um, it was a snowball fight,” Mack said. “She was standing on top of the corral when I threw the snowball.”

Harley glanced at the boy over her shoulder. “So she got cut when she fell?”

The kids looked at each other again. Both were making a strange face. Something was up. Harley shrugged. “You don’t need to tell me. But I’m sure your dad will want to know.”

“He’ll kill me,” Mack muttered.

“But it’s my fault, too,” Molly said, wincing as she touched the cut and checked her fingers for blood. “I... wanted... to play.” She dabbed her head again. “And see? It’s not that bad. I’m not bleeding that much now. Dad might not even notice.”

“Well, let’s go into the house and get you cleaned up properly,” Harley said, not wanting to think about Brock’s reaction, or Brock himself.

They tramped back through the snow and stomped their feet on the porch, knocking off excess snow. The back door suddenly opened and Brock was there. “Where have you been?” he demanded. “Your pies were burning.”

It was only then that he noticed Molly’s blood-streaked face. “Hell and damnation,” he swore. “What happened?”

 

 

 

Brock walked Molly into the kitchen and lifted her onto one of the kitchen stools to get a look a proper look at her face. “What happened?” he repeated.

“Snowball fight,” Mack said in a small voice as Miss Diekerhoff went to the sink to wash the blood off her hands and then wet a clean cloth with warm water so he could clean Molly’ face.

Brock took the warm wet cloth from the housekeeper with a gruff thanks and gently began to wipe away the blood streaks. “This cut isn’t from a snowball fight,” he said, shooting Mack a sharp look. “Perhaps you’d like to tell me how it happened.”

The kids didn’t answer and Miss Diekerhoff went to the stove to study the pies he’d pulled from the oven when he smelled the crust burning.

Her lips pursed as she prodded the blackened crust with a fork, her thick honey ponytail sliding over her shoulder, her cheeks still pink from the cold but she didn’t look terribly upset. He was grateful for that. He knew the only reason the pies had burned was because she’d gone to Molly’s aid.

He was grateful she had.

But he was also in need of answers. How had Molly gotten a big gash so close to her eye?

He glanced down at his daughter’s face, which was still so pale the freckles popped across the bridge of her small straight nose. “So are you going to tell me what happened?” he asked, glancing from Molly to Mack, and fighting to hang on to his patience. “And how Molly got cut in a snowball fight?”

The kids just hung their heads, definitely a sign that something else had taken place. But they also weren’t talking. Of course not. These two were masters of collusion. Usually Molly had the big, bright ideas and then applied pressure to her brother until he caved in, agreeing to her bold schemes.