by Sosie Frost
The guilt was already suffocating me. “Jules says I remind them of Mom.”
“Yeah. I can see the family resemblance.”
As was the gentle joke which passed around the town. I brushed my dark fingers through the bouncing curls I’d swept away with the aid of a bubblegum pink scarf. Didn’t matter if my momma was blonde haired and green eyed or if she shared my mahogany skin and fawn eyes, people in Butterpond knew I was her daughter because she’d taught me how to be a lady.
And how to whoop my brothers into shape if they gave me a hard time.
But mostly how to be a good lady.
Also, a forgiving woman. She never thumped the Bible, only used it to swat our backsides when we acted out. What would she say about this? The man I swore never to forgive…and the kids tumbling around his house.
Mellie climbed the woodpile. Tabby unsuccessfully attempted to roll off the counter, falling into my arms.
And he thought it was going to be easy.
He wouldn’t last the night.
“Do you have everything you need for them?” I asked.
Rem nodded. “I got some of their clothes. They brought toys. I set them up in the spare bedroom.”
“Well, that’s good. But…do you know Tabby’s diaper is on backwards?”
He approached the child, picked her up under the arms, and gave her a quick once over.
“Is that why it keeps leaking?” He whistled in realization. “Thought she was an overachiever.”
Fantastic. “Okay, Rem…there’s like, six things I can see from where I’m standing that will seriously maim the very young children.”
He plopped Tabby on the counter and attempted to twist the diaper to the right position. When that didn’t work, he undid the tabs with so much force ripped the Velcro, removed the diaper, and left her tush on the cold counter. The diaper flipped, but he couldn’t fasten it.
He grabbed his handy electrical tape once more. “There. Now she’s got a racing stripe.”
If only he could feed, bathe, and entertain the kids with tape too. At least it wasn’t a staple gun.
I finally asked the question. “Do you need help, Rem?”
His lazy smile would’ve been cute if Mellie wasn’t heading for the axe he’d set near the backdoor. “You worried about me, Sassy?”
“Worried you’re going to end up on the news…” I pointed to the axe wielding Mellie—one blue ox short of a classic American tall tale. “And now I’ll be an accomplice.”
“Mellie, you chop my house down, you’re building the next one.” He took the axe from her hands and searched for a place to put it. The cabin was a mess, so he shrugged and stuck it on top of the fridge, clattering a couple pots and pans out of the way. “They’re kids. Sure, I need some time to fix the place up…” Rem batted at a spider web over the kitchen window. I cringed as the spider clamored to hide in the dusty curtains. “But they needed me. Emma asked, so here I am. Someone’s gotta help the girls. Just like what your family used to do for all those kids—including me.”
“You’re certain you can handle it?”
“Got no problems here.”
I should have left. The suitcase waited in my car. I had a full-tank of gas. I’d been threatening to head to Ironfield for two weeks now.
Rem had the box of supplies. The kids hadn’t set fire to the cabin yet.
They’d be fine.
But my feet didn’t move. “Do you have food for them?”
Rem took a swig from his beer. A liquid dinner might have suited him, but I doubted Mellie and Tabby wanted to lounge on the couch, knocking back a cold six-pack of Juicy Juice.
“I’ll find something,” he said. “I think it’s cute that you’re worried.”
“I’m not worried.” If I was worried, I’d have to stay. “I’m…making conversation.”
“Could have done that a long time ago,” he said. “Called me up.”
And let him know how twice in the past five years I’d actually tracked down a contact number for him in the middle of the Canadian wilds? No thanks.
“I didn’t hear from you either,” I said. “Not even a hey, sorry about the barn.”
“I am sorry about the barn. Sorry about a lot of things. Sorry I haven’t seen you since then.”
I stomped down a betraying warmth. No need to open that Pandora’s Box. “You were the one who left.”
“You didn’t want me around.”
“I never said that.”
“Cause you were too polite. You’d let Julian’s fist do the talking.”
“He’s quite persuasive.”
“And if he knew you were up here, asking about my dinner plans?”
I smirked. “Asking about the kids’ dinner plans.”
Rem glanced over his shoulder. “Mellie, want some dinner?”
The little girl marched into the kitchen, dragging Rem’s boots on her feet. She stumbled as she walked, but she raised her little chin as if she wore a tiara instead of steel-toed mud buckets.
“I don’t like peas,” she said.
“Me either. See?” He winked. “We’re fine.”
This would be fun. I knelt to her level. “Mellie, what else don’t you like to eat?”
Her words bumbled in and out of intelligibility. “Chicken. Broccoli. Green. Yogurt. Cars. Dragons. Shoes!”
The answer became a rambling story about a kitten, dragon, and a spaghetti noodle, but she illustrated my point.
“Any ideas, Chef?” I asked.
Rem had attempted to memorize her preferences and got lost somewhere around worms and green. “I…have some beef jerky.”
“You’re going to feed beef jerky to some toddlers?”
“Got some trail mix too. A can of soup beans.”
“…How long are you keeping the kids?”
“As long as Emma needs.”
I raised my eyebrows. “How long do you think you can keep them alive?”
“At least through the night.”
Good enough for me. Now it was my turn to leave him. I’d already survived five years without speaking, without resolving anything, without…
Saying those words.
I’d last another five. Maybe by then, he’d be out of jail for child endangerment.
“Start small,” I said. “Do you have milk?”
“Well-water.”
“Do you want my advice?”
Rem braced himself on the counter, muscles flexing, eyes brightening with a roguish playfulness that made any game unwinnable.
“It’s been so long since I’ve seen you, Cas…I’ll take anything you’re willing to give.”
“Go into town—”
“Nope.”
I sighed. “Why not?”
“I’ve gotten real good at avoiding Butterpond.”
“Who’s the real baby here? Get off this mountain. Take the girls into town. Buy some kid-friendly food.”
“Like…chew and whiskey?”
I scolded him. “Battery acid and horseradish.”
He grimaced, finally realizing the girls couldn’t survive on dried meats and wild onions.
“Okay,” he said. “This might be hard to believe, Cas…but I might need some help managing this circus. I mean…” His smile turned wicked. “I can pitch a hell of a tent, but beyond that…”
I didn’t need the visual. It’d taken years for me to stop fantasizing about it. “It won’t be that hard. Just…feed them. Make sure they don’t set themselves or the forest on fire. Put them to bed. Repeat.”
“Go with me,” he said.
“Where?”
“To the store.”
Nope. Nada. Not happening. “It’s right where you left it, Rem.”
“How will I know what to buy? Chicken nuggets or liver and onions? Red jello or red wine?”
“You’ll figure it out.”
He edged a little closer, grabbing Tabby before she tossed his phone against the wall. “Not asking for much, Sassy. Give me a cou
ple pointers.”
“I’m on my way out of town.” And this time, I meant it.
That smile didn’t just slay me—it pinned me against the ropes, powerslammed me to the mat, then grabbed a metal folding chair from the crowd.
“How about one last favor for me?” he asked.
Not a chance. That well had emptied trying to put out the barn fire.
He read my reluctance. “Okay. A favor to the kids?”
Damn it. Tabby gave me a wave of her chubby fingers. Mellie continued to list things she liked, didn’t like, and some sounds the baby particularity enjoyed while shouted at the top of her lungs.
I surrendered. “Tell me you have a car seat.”
“No, the kids rode up here on top of a wild boar. Have a little faith, Cassi.”
“That’s the problem,” I said. “I don’t have much faith left in you.”
“Me either.” Rem’s voice had mellowed with honesty and time. “Just means I can’t disappoint you anymore, huh?”
“You’ve never backed down from a challenge.”
“That settles it.” His amusement thudded my heart like an axe missing a tree and striking a nearby boulder instead. “I got nothing else to lose, Cas.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because I already lost you.”
Chapter Two
Remington
I never thought anything could be as bad as the day a splinter had wedged in the cushion of my truck’s seat. If only I might have stayed so naïve.
Cheerios made for a worse ride. Or were they Lucky Charms? Some sort of dusted cereal had ground into every square inch of my truck. The seats. The windows. The carpets. Inside the dome light.
Five hours.
I had the kids for five hours.
Where the hell did the cereal come from? Did it sprout from their pockets? And why the hell were their hands perpetually sticky? They seemed to exude some sort of adhesive. Christ, I could have saved on wood glue and just rubbed a toddler over my furniture instead.
I had braced myself for the diapers and the crying and the shrieking. Wasn’t that much different from a weekday night on the snowfields with the other loggers who’d run to the far corner of the earth just to escape whatever caused them to pound beer after beer at night. Vomit. Shit. Piss. Tears. They’d prepared me for the ankle-biters.
But no one had told me about the crumbs. The girls had a halo of grime that followed them around. Maybe not dirt or anything gross, but a tornado of food bits, fuzz, and inexplicable chocolate.
I didn’t even know I had chocolate in the cabin.
Where in the hell had they found it?
Was it even chocolate?
I didn’t have a goddamned clue what I was doing.
And I sure as hell hadn’t expected to open the door this afternoon and face all of five-foot-nothing Cassia Payne.
That woman was the embodiment—the embootyment—of my every past mistake. She was a good girl every boy wanted to chase, but I was the bad boy who’d cracked that hard, chocolate shell of hers. Unfortunately, before I could get a taste…I’d crushed her heart.
Probably for the best.
I didn’t deserve her then. I sure as hell didn’t deserve her help grocery shopping now.
“Is this the store?” Mellie swung her legs with the express purpose of ensuring her mismatched tennis shoes could hit my seat.
They could.
Pink shoe struck first. Purple followed, smacking the seat with enough force to feel it in my kidney.
I’d have to find the matching shoes. If they’d been packed. Just another item to add to a growing list for the kids. Find their shoes. Use electrical tape to mend the yellow baby blanket that had ripped on the truck’s tailgate. Buy more baby shampoo. Stock up on diapers on top of diapers on top of diapers.
In which grocery store aisle would I find my sanity?
I parked next to Cassi’s little red Ford Fiesta and breathed a sigh of relief.
This concluded Mellie’s twenty solid minutes of ceaseless questions. Twenty minutes of noise. Twenty minutes of sniffles, giggles, and inquisitions.
If a tree fell in the forest, you’re goddamned right it made a thud. If a three-year-old fell in the forest, it’d be a half-hour of philosophical discussion into the hows, whys, wheres, whens, and indignities of the tumble. And then they’d demand a cookie.
I wasn’t used to talking.
Wasn’t used to kids.
And I wasn’t used to Cassi.
“I’m impressed.” She greeted me with a playful tease. “You remembered the way to the store.”
I’d sweated in the Butterpond summer for a solid day now, but Cassi’s smile was warmer than any record heat. But that hesitance in her voice? The hurt? That was a splash of icy water. Like tripping into a puddle in the winter and peeling away the soaked denim sticking to your calf.
“Wasn’t hard,” I said. “It’s the only building in town.”
I unhooked Mellie from her seat. Apparently, this was permission for her to bolt across the parking lot without checking to see the rusted Toyota creeping between the lanes. Cassi caught the kid before she skateboarded across the lot on an abandoned cart.
I hated the store—hated the owners more—but I shrugged. “I guess I either get some food here or I pilfer it from the mayor.”
Cassi smirked. “I think he’s still holding a grudge from the last time you pilfered.”
One time. I’d broken into his kitchen one time, and we got caught. “That was Tidus’s idea. He wanted to swipe the old man’s ice cream. Just horsing around.”
Cassi knew the story. Apparently, all of Butterpond had heard. “And what did you take instead?”
Tabby squealed as I lugged her from the car seat. The kids were too young and Cassi too sheltered to hear the truth about my teenage prank. We’d swiped a pair of panties from the mayor’s gold-digging, twenty-five-year-old wife. Some secrets were best left to the past.
“Helped ourselves to his whiskey and cigars,” I said.
“Which you smoked and drank in the jail cell.”
She made it sound worse than it was. “And where do you think the evidence ended up? Sherriff Samson hadn’t had a raise in three years, but he made up for it with a box of Mayor Cowdar’s finest cigars that night.”
Mellie squealed, stomped, and tugged on Cassi’s hand.
“Let’s go!” Her little pout would be adorable for the next five minutes…until she had enough of the store and pitched a fit in the checkout. “Please.”
“Future bargain shopper.” Cassi winked. She helped me settle Tabby into a cart, somehow knowing where the store kept the wet naps to sterilize every touchable surface.
“Do you…shop here?” I asked. “This is Barlow’s place.”
She didn’t tolerate my pouting and shoved me inside the Shop N’ Mart with a sigh.
“We’re adults now, Rem. We can all shop in the Barlow’s family store without it devolving into chaos and bloodshed.”
Didn’t matter that the store sold six-packs at the entrance or that the rotisserie chickens smelled so damn good. No double coupon could cheapen loyalty.
“They’re Barlows,” I said.
“Get used to it…unless you want to drive another thirty minutes to Hunter’s Ridge to shop for animal crackers.”
It might have been worth it.
“You remember the time the Barlows beat Tidus to a pulp, right?” I asked. She didn’t listen, pushing the cart into the produce section. I ignored the chipper colors and decent prices. “Remember how they used to harass Jules? Know how many tires were slashed? Fist fights?”
Her slim finger wagged near my face. “Don’t you pretend like you and my brothers were innocent in that feud.” Mellie mimicked Cassi’s sass and wiggled her hand too. Great. They were ganging up on me. “I’ve heard the stories, Remington.”
“From who? Your brothers would never have told you about the shit that went down.”
She twisted a
curl between her fingers. Those big eyes looked away. Guilty? Or was she actually considering purchasing the freshly misted napa cabbage?
“I heard it from Matthew Barlow.”
“And what the fuc—” Both little girls stared up at me with innocent eyes. “What were you doing with Matt Barlow?”
Cassi shrugged. “He took me out for coffee.”
My blood ran cold. Cassi with that son of a bitch?
Out for coffee?
Doing fucking god knew what with a Barlow Boy?
I grunted. “What the hell did you do when I was gone?”
The store wasn’t big enough for the massive shopping cart, let alone the four little arms that darted out in every direction to smash the fruits, vegetables, and bright candies inconveniently located next to the potato bin.
Cassi fumed hot enough to bake every spud into dinners for the next week. She set her jaw, planted her feet, and sunk her hands onto curves she didn’t have before I left.
The old Cassi would have stormed away. No bite but enough bluster to blow up her skirt.
This one stood her ground on perfect hourglass hips. She puffed her perky, suddenly full chest. Turned that baby-soft dark skin into armor. And faced me down.
Where had little Cassia Payne gone?
And how could I convince the gorgeous woman standing in her place to go home with me?
“While you were gone…” She threatened me with a carrot before bagging half a dozen. “I grew up.”
“Don’t have to tell me twice.” I grabbed the biggest zucchini from the display and wiggled it before her. She had enough class to ignore the metaphor.
Mellie whined and attempted to flee the cart. I helped her to the floor before she cracked her head off the linoleum. And Cassi said the kids would be hard to handle.
“You were just a sprout when I left,” I said.
“And now?”
She’d placed a hand on the honeydews. The melons had nothing on her.
“Talk about blue-ribbon produce,” I teased.
Cassi didn’t giggle. “Well, I wasn’t waiting around to get judged, thank you very much.”
“So you let Matt Barlow ring you up?”
She scooted the cart towards the onions and garlic. “Once.”
“One time too many.”