“You okay?” Tyler asked, his eyebrow raised.
This should have been a nice Saturday afternoon for them. Addie was taking a nap, and the house was completely still for a few hours.
She rubbed at a headache that was beginning to form in the middle of her forehead. “There’s never enough money for the things I want to do at CRISIS. I don’t want to have to have to ask those women to pay to stay there, but I’m running out of ideas. Food prices are soaring, along with utilities. It doesn’t help that we’re housing more women and children than we ever have. It feels like I’m fighting a losing battle.”
Tyler got up from where he sat and went over to the couch, motioning her to move so he could lie beside her. She did, and the two of them scrunched closely together. Meredith sighed, resting her head against his strong chest. “You’ve got to give yourself a break,” he whispered as he stroked her hair. “You can’t save everybody.”
She knew what he was saying. She couldn’t, and if she thought she did, she’d never make it to Christmas, but this was something she’d struggled with the entire time she’d been director. It hurt to know there were small families who would slip through the cracks and there wasn’t anything she’d be able to do about it. “I know, but I want to.”
“You have a good heart, Mer. I can’t tell you how proud I am of you.” He pulled back so that his brown eyes could look into hers. “You’ve grown so much from the young, cocky girl I met. You’re the most unselfish, giving person I know.”
“I’m trying to be.” She buried her face in his chest and breathed in the scent that was only him. It helped calm her down like nothing else in the world.
“Listen to me.” His tone was strong. “You are. You’re not trying to be, but you have to give yourself permission to fall. You can only do so much, and I’ve noticed the last week you have dark circles under your eyes, you aren’t eating like you normally do, and you’re not whiney, but you’re taking things more to heart.”
“I know.” She nodded. She’d caught herself crying the other day at some stupid commercial. She’d never done that before. It wasn’t something she’d wanted to admit to anyone, so she chalked it up to being tired and rundown. “I need to take a few days off,” she admitted. “I’m getting burnt out.”
“When can you do this? Maybe I can take a few days off, and we can take Addie to Gatlinburg. We haven’t been there in a while.”
Gatlinburg was one of her favorite places in the world, and it held a special place in both of their hearts. “We could do it this coming weekend,” she said excitedly. There happened to be an over-abundance of volunteers for the weekend before school started.
“Okay.” He ran a large hand down her arm, clasping their hands together. “Let me talk to Liam and make sure it’s okay. As long as he’s good with it, I’ll get it worked out. I think we both need a little bit of a break, and it would be our first family vacation.”
Neither one of them could miss the wistfulness in his voice. He’d never had one of those before. She wasn’t even sure that he’d ever had a vacation before he’d taken her to Gatlinburg all those years ago, but she knew this wasn’t the time to ask. “I love you.” She threw her arms around his neck. “You know exactly what I need, normally before I do.”
“I’m just doing my job.”
She knew it was more than that. He always had her best interest at heart, no matter what was going on in his life. For someone who’d had no family growing up, he instinctively knew how to be a good husband and father. If truth was known, she’d worried about that when Addie had been brought to them, but he continued to amaze her every day. Reaching up, she kissed him softly on the lips. “Thank you.”
He moved on the couch so that he was more comfortable. “What do you say that while Addie takes her nap, we take one of our own?”
That was the best idea she’d heard in a long time. Reaching up on the back of the couch, she grabbed the blanket she kept there and threw it over the both of them.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” He chuckled, wrapping her up with his arms.
“Definite yes, and I have to admit this is my favorite place right here.”
“Mine too,” he whispered before placing a soft kiss on her forehead. “Mine too.”
“Andrew!”
Drew’s head snapped up at harsh tone that had spoken his given name. There, he saw his dad standing in the doorway of his room. It was at that moment he began to worry. He had no idea what he’d done to set the old man off; he kind of liked to walk the line between making him proud and pissing him off. Sometimes what he did surprised them both. “Yeah?”
“Get dressed and meet me out at the truck in five.”
Glancing at the clock, Drew realized it was early evening, an odd time for his dad to want to take a ride, especially in the truck, but who was he to question anything. There was one thing he’d learned not to do and that was question Liam. Liam did not like to be questioned. Grabbing a shirt, he pulled it over his body and then slipped into a pair of cargo shorts and a pair of flip flops. His hair was atrocious, so he grabbed a hat and put it on his head, backwards, ’cause he knew it drove his mom insane. In four minutes he was downstairs and at his dad’s truck, waiting on him. He waited for five more minutes.
“Sorry, I got held up,” Liam told him as he walked slowly from the house.
Drew just bet he had. This had “teaching him a lesson” written all over it. He waited impatiently for Liam to unlock the cab and then climbed in. The first few minutes of the ride were made in silence, and it made Drew uncomfortable. “Where are we goin’?”
“Just driving around,” Liam answered, without really answering.
“Does this have anything to do with me pissing Mandy off a few weeks ago?”
“I don’t know, should it?” Liam glared over at his son, his blue eyes blazing.
The gaze made the younger boy run a hand across the back of his neck and turn his own gaze towards the window, away from the judging glare of his dad. “I was kidding.”
That set Liam off. He’d gotten to the field that he wanted to get to anyway, so he turned off the main road and drove them out to a crop of trees where nobody could hear them yelling if it came to that. “See, that’s the wrong fucking answer,” he said as he rolled down the windows and shut the truck off. “You do not brag to your buddies about bangin’ some chick.”
“She’s not just some chick,” Drew argued.
“Then for fuck’s sake, son, why are you braggin’ about it? If she means more to you than getting your rocks off, then why are you braggin’ about it? And why are you bringing your sister into it? You need to be protecting her, not pissing her off so that she goes out and sleeps with Dalton the first time she has a chance,” Liam told him. He wasn’t yelling yet, but his tone was forceful, and it was taking everything he had to hold back. These teenagers and their dumb logic. He hoped he’d never been this fucking hard-headed.
“Did she?” Drew asked, his eyes wide as he turned in his seat. “I told her not to.”
“I don’t know. Your sister doesn’t talk to me about her sex life, and her sex life is not what we’re discussing here, it’s yours.”
Drew opened his mouth to say more, but Liam cut him off. “While we’re discussing it, I have a few things to tell you. One, you better be practicing safe sex—Tatum is finally, for the love of God, after almost two years, sleeping like a normal human being. I am not taking care of another baby. I just now got to where I can sleep eight hours straight. Two, if I hear you bragging about bangin’ that girl again, I’m gonna kick you in the balls and make you cry. You brag about the girls you don’t care about; you don’t brag about the girls you do care about.”
“I’m sorry.” Drew hung his head.
“I’m not done. If you’re anything like me, and I think you are, because you couldn’t be more my son than if I made you, you need to think about this. Did it ever occur to you that by you braggin’ to your buddies about what your girl
does for you that they may want to step in behind your back? They’re fantasizing about her Drew, and let me be honest with you; it doesn’t matter if they’re your best friends. You’re getting something that they aren’t. That breeds jealousy and competition. I don’t ever mention a word about what your mom and I do to other people, not because I don’t want to scream to the world about what a satisfied man I am. She does those things because she loves me. She trusts me. What if she didn’t trust me anymore? What if she didn’t think that what we do is special ’cause I went to the whole club and told them? Do you know how that would make me feel?”
Drew nodded, because he knew how he would feel if someone else talked about Charity the way he had been. He’d want to rip their dicks off and shove it down their throats. “Like shit,” he whispered.
“And like I wasn’t that much of a man, because then I would know that I caused that, I encouraged it. Not everybody is going to be happy for the two of you. There’s only a small handful of people you give power to when you brag about things like that. Rein your fucking mouth in, boy.”
He nodded. He’d never felt like more of a boy in his life. “I get it.”
Looking at him, Liam could tell that he did, in fact, get it. “I’m glad, and I appreciate you listening while I chewed your ass. Now you owe your sister and Charity both an apology. I think Mandy’s still a little pissed at you, truth be told, and for the love of God, keep your sex life on the down low. Your mom is in denial, and I’d like for her to be in denial as long as possible. It’s gonna be a hard day when she realizes you aren’t thirteen anymore.”
Drew laughed, but it was subdued. “I understand.”
“Good, now what do you say we go grab some wings? I’m hungry.”
That was the best idea he’d heard in a long time, and it’d been way too long since he’d spent any one-on-one time with his dad.
Chapter Ten
Meredith was running around like a chicken with her head cut off. After she’d said yes to Tyler about a mini-vacation for their family and he’d gotten it approved from Liam, she’d started doing things at CRISIS so she could take a few days off. They had decided they would leave after work on Thursday and head down to Gatlinburg that night. They’d have the whole day Friday, the whole day Saturday, and part of the day Sunday for making the trip back.
“Are you sure I’m not asking too much of you?” Meredith chewed on her bottom lip as she questioned Christine. There was no one she trusted more with this place than her friend. If Christine hadn’t loved doing hair so much, she’d ask her to leave the Curly Q and come manage CRISIS, but Meredith knew how much she loved doing hair. It calmed her in a way nothing else could.
“You aren’t, I promise. For the most part, this place runs itself with the two workers you have on payroll and all the volunteers. If you’re going to leave, now is the perfect time to do it, because all of the teenagers who got community service over the summer are gonna want to get it done before school starts. We will be fine,” Christine assured her.
Meredith knew all of this was true, but at the same time, she’d never left CRISIS since she’d started volunteering years ago. It felt weird; it felt like a part of her was giving up on some of the people who stayed there. She wasn’t sure why, but it felt like she was leaving them. Just as she opened her mouth to talk to Christine, one of her payroll workers, Jennifer, came into her office.
“Hey you two,” she greeted the two ladies and had a seat. “I need to talk to you about something, both of you actually since you’ll be gone the next few days.” Jennifer nodded at Meredith.
This was never good. Jennifer did room searches while the occupants were out and about for the day. They had to keep contraband out of the house in order to maintain order, and when someone checked in, the rule was on the paperwork they signed, it was as simple as that. If Jennifer was coming to talk about something, it was never good.
“What do you have?” Meredith asked her as she sat forward in her seat. Being alert always made her feel better about the situation.
Jennifer leaned over and placed a metal box on the desk. “I found drugs in Stephanie’s room.”
“Shit,” Meredith breathed, loudly. She’d felt off about the newest woman who’d come to stay at CRISIS. Something about her hadn’t sat well, and while she wasn’t sure what, she hadn’t wanted to bring attention to someone who didn’t deserve it.
“What do you want us to do?” Christine asked her.
“You know what protocol is. She needs to be taken for a drug test if she wants to stay here. If she fails, she’s either kicked out or offered rehab. We can’t make exceptions.”
“Then I will take care of this,” Christine told her. “You go home and pack. You’re leaving tomorrow; don’t come in, just enjoy yourself until you leave. You’ve worked hard and you deserve to have some time off. Let me do this for you.”
It wasn’t in Meredith’s DNA to let other people take care of messes, but she was so tired that she was tempted.
“Go.” Jennifer nodded. “Go pick up your daughter and have a good time with your family. When you get back, we’ll let you know what happened here. This place isn’t going to fall down around our ears because you aren’t here.”
It still felt weird, but she knew they were right. She was fighting burnout in a bad way. “I’m leaving now, before I can talk myself out of it,” she told them as she grabbed her purse and her car keys.
They didn’t try to stop her as she got up and walked out of the office. She got to her SUV and threw her purse into the passenger side before walking around to the driver’s side. When she got there, she saw Stephanie pulling into the drive. The other woman got out of her car and the two locked eyes. They held gazes for what felt like forever before Stephanie broke it and went inside.
“What is it about that girl?” she whispered. Her hands were shaking as she went to back out of the drive. There was something about her that didn’t ring true, that seriously gave Meredith the creeps. Before she could talk herself out of it, she pulled her phone out of the console and took a picture of the girl’s license plate. Chances were it was a fake plate, but it would give Steele a place to start. By the time she got back on Monday, she wanted to know what she was dealing with.
A few hours later, Meredith was feeling more accomplished than she had earlier in the day. Her nerves had calmed down enough that she had been able to give the house a thorough cleaning, she’d done all the laundry, and now she stood outside, cleaning out the SUV. It always amazed her how dirty it got, even though it was normally just her and Addie inside it. Beside her, the baby monitor buzzed, and she could hear Addie on it.
“Mama,” her voice was clear.
There had been a time in her life when Meredith had thought she’d never hear that word, especially aimed at her. It warmed her heart now as much as it did the first time she’d heard it.
“Hey.” She waved as she made her way into Addie’s room. They’d moved her from a baby bed into a big girl bed, but there was still a rail on it so the little girl couldn’t roam by herself. “Did you sleep well?” she asked, picking her up and hugging her small body.
The smell of a little girl was something that made Meredith feel like she was coming home. If there was ever a time when she questioned if she had made the right decision to go through with the adoption, that was answered every single time Addie threw her arms around her neck and snuggled in.
“Yeah,” she answered. “Thirsty.”
They made their way to the kitchen, and Meredith went to work getting a snack ready and pouring her a sippy cup full of juice. As she finished slicing an apple and grabbing a few cubes of cheese, she had a seat at the table and put the pate in front of Addie, who sat in her high chair.
“Mer?”
That was odd. Tyler was supposed to be at the shop for a few more hours at least.
“We’re in here,” she yelled.
He burst through the doorframe, his eyes bright. “You wanna tell me
why you have Steele researching a fuckin’ license plate?”
Blowing out a breath, she rolled her eyes. “Damn, I thought something was really wrong.”
“It is wrong, if you feel threatened in any way.”
“I don’t.” She shook her head. “I’m not sure what I feel. It’s weird.”
“The feeling is weird, or the situation?”
She cut her eyes at him. He’d learned well from their sessions with Doc Jones. “Both.”
He sighed and had a seat at the table. “Why don’t you explain to me what’s going on, and then I can help you determine if the feeling or the situation is weird.”
“I don’t need you to save me all the time, Ty. I’m perfectly capable of making a decision on my own. If I feel threatened, I would definitely tell you that. There’s no way I’d put any of us in harm’s way.”
He counted to ten. Another little trick he’d learned from good ole Doc Jones. “I know you’d never intentionally do something to hurt anyone else, but you of all people should know that everyone is not like you.”
That hurt, but she knew he was right. “Did Travis find out anything?”
“Not yet.”
“Then why the hell did he already sell me out?” Her mouth hung open in shock. There was such a thing as friendly courtesy.
“He was worried that something had happened at CRISIS. He couldn’t get hold of Christine. He did what you should have done and called me.”
“Well I’m here to tell you, things are okay. There’s one woman though, a young one, who came in the other day. There’s something about her that I can’t put my finger on. Something about her seems off, and they found drugs in her room. Christine sent me home so I wouldn’t have to deal with it before we left for our trip.”
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