With a Little Luck Read Free

when he heard the person bump into a chair and curse beneath his breath.
    Throwing back the covers, Toby slipped out of his single bed and walked to the hall door. His bare feet made no sound on the carpeted floor. He opened the door wide and waited until he saw the towering frame of his father separate from the darkness. He was walking unsteadily, trying so hard to be quiet.
    The light from the full moon streamed through the window at the end of the hallway where Toby stood, including him in its path. The instant he saw the boy, his father, Luck McClure, stopped abruptly and swayed, bracing a hand against the wall to steady himself. A frown gathered on his forehead as he eyed the boy.
    “What are you doing out of bed? You’re supposed to be asleep,” he accused in a growling voice that had a trace of a slur.
    “You woke me up,” Toby replied. “You always do when you try to sneak in.”
    “I wasn’t sneaking.” He emphatically denied that suggestion and glanced around. “Where’s Mrs. Jackson, the lady who is supposed to be sitting with you?”
    “She was going to charge double after midnight, so I paid her off and sent her home. You owe me twelve dollars.”
    “You — ” Luck McClure clamped his mouth shut on the explosion of anger and carefully raised a hand to cradle his forehead. “We’ll talk about this in the morning, Toby,” he declared in heavy warning.
    “Yes, sir. I’ll remind you if you forget,” he promised. A mischievous light danced in his eyes. “You owe me twelve dollars.”
    “That’s another thing we’ll discuss in the morning.” But it was a weak facsimile of his previous warning, as a wave of tiredness washed over him. “Right now, I’m going to bed.”
    Luck pushed away from the wall and used that impetus to carry him to the bedroom door opposite his son’s. Toby watched him open the door to the darkened room and head in the general direction of the bed. Without a light to see the exact location of his destination, Luck stubbed his toe on an end post. He started to swear and stopped sharply when Toby crossed the hall to flip the switch, turning on the overhead light.
    “Why aren’t you back in bed where you belong?” Luck hobbled around to the side of the bed and half sat, half fell onto the mattress.
    “I figured you’d need help getting ready for bed.” Toby walked to the bed with all the weary patience of an adult and helped finish tugging the pullover sweater over his father’s head.
    “For an eight-year-old kid, you figure a lot of things,” Luck observed with a wry sort of affection. While he unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt, Toby unfastened the buttons on his shirtfront.
    “You’ve gotta admit, dad, I did you a favor tonight,” Toby said as he helped pull his arms free of the shirt. “How would it have looked if Mrs. Jackson had seen you come home drunk?”
    “I’m not drunk,” Luck protested, unfastening his pants and standing long enough to slip them down his hips. Toby pulled them the rest of the way off. “I just had a few drinks, that’s all.”
    “Sure, dad.” He reached over and pulled down the bedcovers. It didn’t take much persuasion to get his father under them.
    “It feels so good to lie down,” Luck groaned, and started to shut his eyes when Toby tucked the covers around him. He opened them to give his son a bleary-eyed look. “Did I tell you I talked to a brown mouse?” The question was barely out before he rolled onto his side, burrowing into the pillow. “You’d better get some sleep, son,” he mumbled.
    Shaking his head, Toby walked to the door and paused to look at his already snoring father. He reached up to flip off the light.
    “A brown mouse,” he repeated. “That’s another thing we’ll discuss in the morning.”
    Back in his moonlit room, Toby crawled into bed. He glanced at the framed photograph on the table beside his bed. The picture was a twin to the one on his father’s bureau. From it, a tawny-haired