Beneath the Tombstone (The Tombstone Series) by Martin Cogburn

said, grinning down at the boy who came running across the room
towards him.
    “It’s
my birthday. What’d you bring me?” his nephew asked, sliding to a stop with a
huge smile on his face.
    “Your
birthday?” Jason asked, sounding puzzled. “No one told me it was your birthday,”
he added, revealing his empty hands. His nephew’s smile vanished. It was
replaced with a look of disbelief.
    “Now,
be nice,” Misty scolded, standing beside her husband.
    Jason
turned to her and retrieved the present that she held out to him. “Really,” he
spoke to her, “no one told me it was his birthday,” he paused for a moment and
began to smile, “so I guess it’s a good thing I remembered,” he added, turning
back to Ken. “Surprise!” he shouted to the boy who looked very surprised indeed.
    “A
present!” Ken yelled, his frown morphing back into a grin. “What is it?”
    “A
pony!” his uncle replied with a teasing smile.
    “A
pony?” the boy asked as he sized up the box wrapped in action figure wrapping
paper. “Well, put it on the table,” he said, the doubt of a pony’s ability to
fit into such a small space evident in his voice.
    Ken
walked over with his uncle and watched as the gift was placed among the others.
“I sure do like birthdays. Don’t you, Uncle Jason?” the boy asked eagerly.
    “Yep,”
Jason answered. “I sure do.” He leaned over to his nephew and whispered, “You
want to hear a little secret? I’m gonna be having a
birthday myself in another month or so.” Ken’s eyes brightened. The boy loved
talking birthdays.
    Jason
looked around the room. There were quite a few boys that looked to be about
Ken’s age and a girl who appeared to be a few years older. That seemed a little
strange. She appeared to feel a bit out of place and awkward.
    He
turned to Ken to ask who she was, but the boy was no longer with him… not in mind,
anyways. What was he staring at? Jason followed his nephew’s gaze and it lead
to a little girl walking towards the other kids. Jason’s eyebrows arched in
surprise. It was the cute little girl from Ken’s baseball game.
    A
broad smile came to Jason’s face as he leaned over to Ken and whispered, “How’d
you manage to pull that off?”
    It
would appear that Ken was over his denial of the fact that he liked the little
girl because he didn’t fain innocence or say “huh” but quietly explained, “I
asked her.”
    “And she
came?” Jason questioned. “Just as simple as that?” The surprise was evident in
his voice. No matter how calm Ken was acting about it now, if he knew the boy
at all, asking her to his party was one of the hardest things he’d ever done.
    “No
sir, she had to ask her family first,” Ken explained. “They said only if her
older sister came, too. She said she’d do it for five bucks.” He paused for a
moment and gave a slightly distressed sigh as he added, “I sure hope I get me
some money in one of them cards.”
    Jason
barely managed to contain his laughter. It seemed that he wasn’t the only one
willing to do a little underhanded scheming for the sake of the little lady in
his life.
    An
idea popped into Jason’s head. Leaving the boy standing by his gifts, he headed
over towards Misty who stood over in a corner talking to her sister, Susan.
Unfortunately for Jason, their mother was also in on the conversation. How
wonderful. As he drew near, he overheard Misty regaling the tale of his daring
deed. “…and he sent the first one flying into the second one – knocked their
heads together and they both went out like a light.”
    Jason
was just a little bit offended by the look of amazement on his sister-in-laws face but even more so by his mother-in-laws words. “I find that hard to believe,” she
spoke with contempt, her back to him. “Jason is…”
    “right
behind you,” he interrupted, curving her sentence to a different finish.
    His
mother-in-law turned around. “Jason,” she spoke in surprise. “I didn’t