by Dylann Crush
She angled her head, lifting her mouth to meet his. Their lips touched. His whole world spun out of control as he reached behind her, cupping the back of her head with his palm. She tasted like the peppermints they’d grabbed from the candy dish on Lacey’s desk on their way out.
Before he could take the kiss deeper, a horn blared, reminding him they were standing on the side of the road.
She pulled away, her gaze searching his. “What was that?”
Honestly, he didn’t know what the hell had just happened. He couldn’t exactly tell her the truth, which was that he felt like a piece of him that had always been missing just slid into place. “Depends. Do you regret it?”
“That’s for me to know and for you to maybe find out.” She pulled her hand away, but the tinge of pink flushing her cheeks made him think she might have enjoyed that kiss just as much as he did. “How about we get the rest of that dog food? I’ve got a couple dozen hungry pitties to feed and don’t you have that appointment with the contractor this afternoon?”
“Sure do.” He followed her back into the feed store to pick up another load.
There was something about her that tugged at a piece of him deep down inside. She knew what it was like to be left. From what he’d learned about her story, her mom died a few years ago and her dad bailed when Zeb came home a broken version of the hero who’d gone off to war. They were two of a kind. The only difference was she stuck around to fight her battles while he made himself scarce, hoping to outrun the wounds of his past.
All of a sudden he was sorry the wedding date got moved up. If only because it meant he wouldn’t have a reason to stick around Ido once it was over.
seven
Alex somehow made it through the initial meeting with the contractor even though he had a hard time concentrating after that kiss. He made plans to meet with the man again the next morning, then hightailed it across the river separating Ido from Swynton. He’d promised Char he’d be back to watch the girls before she left for her part-time job at the country club.
Spending time with his nieces would be the perfect opportunity to prove he wanted to pitch in and help while he was in town. He cranked the wheel to turn in to the driveway but stopped short when he noticed a van already taking the spot. A decal on the side read angel hands nursing home. The name rang a bell. Wasn’t that the one where Gramps had been staying?
Alex’s breath hitched as he thought about what that might mean. According to Char, Angel Hands was just about their last resort. If Gramps had been kicked out of one of the last places willing to take him, how would that affect Char?
He swallowed hard. How would that affect him? He’d been more than willing to contribute a little dough here and there to smooth things over and keep his grandfather in care. But if the old man kept pissing people off, where would he go?
The front door opened and a short guy in blue scrubs scurried out. A lamp sailed through the door behind him, followed by Gramps. “Get out and stay out.”
Alex had barely made it out of the truck when the van screeched to a halt beside him before grinding into gear and taking off down the street. What the hell was going on? He turned toward the door where his grandfather leaned against the doorway. Char stood next to him, her hand wrapped around his arm, tugging him back into the house.
Alex hadn’t laid eyes on his grandfather in years. Not since Alex’s dad died and Alex had dropped out of college, loaded his backpack, and cashed out his savings account for a one-way plane ticket to Oslo. Gramps had frowned and told Alex he needed to stick around. Alex had grinned back at the older man and kept right on packing. He’d promised himself then that he’d never come back, wouldn’t let the people who were supposed to love him the most be the weight that dragged him down.
Somehow Alex remembered his grandfather being taller, more intimidating. Not like the stooped, scowling stranger who glared at him as he walked up the drive.
“Alex, thank goodness you’re back. I’ve got to leave for my shift. Jordan can pretty much handle the other girls, but . . .” Her gaze bounced back and forth between him and Gramps.
“Hey, Gramps.” Alex thrust his hand forward.
The old man grunted and turned away, shuffling toward the easy chair Char kept in the corner of the living room.
“The nursing home brought him over. He can’t stay there anymore.” Char twisted her hands together. “What are we going to do?”
Alex took in a deep breath through his nose. “You go to work. Gramps and I probably ought to have a heart-to-heart.”
“What good will that do?” Char whispered.
“I’ll just explain to him, guy to guy, that he needs to step up and hold himself in check. He can’t expect you to put everything on hold and take care of him, not with everything else you’ve got on your plate.”
She shoved her hands to her hips. “You think I haven’t tried that before? Ever since Nana died he’s been unbearable. He keeps saying he wants to go home, but he can’t stay out at the ranch all by himself.”
Alex smiled as he thought about his grandmother. She was tough—never let him get away with anything—but she was also the only one who’d ever been full of hugs and smiles and fresh-baked cookies. What would Nana do if she were here?
“You go get ready for work. Gramps and I will clean up this mess, get some fresh air, and see if we can sort something out.” He nodded to himself, confident he’d be able to get Gramps to see things his way.
Char rolled her eyes before she disappeared down the hallway.
Alex glanced out to the sidewalk, where the lamp had shattered into a bazillion pieces, and then wandered into the kitchen in search of a broom and dustpan. His niece Frankie sat at the table dipping her baby carrots into the jar of grape jelly, the damn bird sitting on her shoulder.
“Hey, Frankie, where’s your mom keep the broom?”
She sucked the jelly off the carrot in her hand and then dipped it back into the jar. So much for no double-dipping. He kept having to remind himself he wasn’t living the bachelor life anymore. At least not while he was bunking up with his sister and her kids.
“Frankie?”
She didn’t respond, just kept dipping the same carrot into the jar and sucking all the jelly off.
“She can’t hear you.” Dolly, his youngest niece, teetered into the kitchen in her plastic heels, a feather boa wrapped around her neck. “Frankie got her headphones on.” She lifted a gloved hand to point at her sister.
Alex squatted down to meet Dolly at eye level. “Thanks, sweetie. Can you tell me where your mama keeps the broom?”
Dolly shuffled to the narrow space between the fridge and the wall. “In there.”
“And the dustpan?” he asked.
“We don’t got no dustpan. Jordan broke it.”
No dustpan. He could improvise. Spotting an oversized piece of thick paper on the counter, Alex reached for it. “Come on, Gramps. We’re going outside to clean up your mess.”
The old man didn’t budge, just sat in the chair in the corner, unblinking as some kid show played across the screen. Alex leaned over and pushed the power button. The ten-year-old, Izzy, groaned. “Uncle Alex, I was watching that.”
“Sorry, kiddo. Gramps was too invested. Now come on, let’s get that broken glass cleaned up before one of the girls gets hurt.” That must have done it. Gramps hefted himself out of the chair and made his way to the front door.
Alex kept one eye on his grandfather and one on Dolly to make sure she didn’t follow them out onto the driveway. “What were you thinking?”
Gramps tugged his Dallas Cowboys hat lower over his eyes. “Wasn’t thinking at all. You try living in a place where they don’t let you have any privacy. Not a bit. Probably got cameras watching me twenty-four seven.”
Best to humor the old man. At least he’d gotten his butt up out of the chair. “Proba
bly, Gramps.”
Alex began to sweep the shattered ceramic pieces of the lamp base into a pile while Gramps stood nearby. By the time he picked up the bigger pieces out of the grass, Gramps took a seat on the bench Char had sitting on the concrete porch. Alex bent down, trying to use the piece of paper he’d picked up as a dustpan.
After several trips back and forth from the giant metal garbage can Char kept on the side of the house, he was done. “Thanks for the help, Gramps. You want to take a turn around the block and get some fresh air?”
Gramps gazed up at him and then dropped his head.
“I’ve got to go in and wash up. You’ll be all right out here for a few minutes?”
“I’m old, not incompetent,” Gramps said.
Alex let out a chuckle. He wasn’t cut out for the job of humoring Gramps back into line, but it wouldn’t be the first time he took on something beyond his ability or way above his pay grade.
As he reentered the house, he felt like he’d walked in on World War III, Sanders-style. Izzy stood in the kitchen wailing with Char in front of her.
“What’s going on?” Alex asked.
“She lost her report. It was right here on the counter and now it’s gone.” Char turned toward her daughter. “No more excuses. If you don’t get that turned in tomorrow, you’ll get another red tag and you know what that means.”
Izzy turned to Alex, her eyes brimming with tears. “Uncle Alex, did you see my report?”
His heart plummeted to his feet. “What did it look like?”
She held her arms out. “It was about this big.”
“Was it white?”
Her head bobbed up and down.
With a sinking feeling drowning all hopes of a peaceful night, he summoned a brave grin. “Looks like you and I are going to be making a trip to the store after dinner to pick up a new piece of poster board.”
eight
Zina held the beer bottle to her lips and took a nice, long draw. What a day. Between the surprise that she was going to be in charge of the Munyon wedding and the lip-lock with Alex, she wanted to lose herself for a little while in a local beer and a platter of chicken nachos while watching the high school basketball team take on their rivals from Swynton on the local station.
“Go, Beavers!” Zeb shifted on the stool next to her.
Zina turned, her mouth full of the giant bite of cheese-covered chips she’d just eaten. It was one thing to get her brother out of the house for their weekly dinner together, but she didn’t expect him to actually engage in anything beyond a stilted conversation. The fact he was cheering for the home team put a smile on her face.
Before she could swallow and comment on his enthusiasm, her phone rang.
Lacey.
Hadn’t they had enough excitement for one day? Zina turned it facedown and grabbed another chip.
The phone rang again and Zeb pointed to it. “Aren’t you going to answer your phone?”
Zina groaned and held it to her ear. “I’m at dinner with Zeb. What’s up?”
“Can you swing by the house tomorrow morning? Kirby wants to talk to us about starting a transportation service. I think he found an old limo or something and wants in on the wedding business.”
Zina took a swig from her beer. “Did you not hear the doctor? You’re pregnant.”
“Yeah. But it’s not a death sentence. I’ve got months ahead of me before I have to start worrying about an actual baby.”
Lacey might have finally lost her mind. Zina had heard other friends talk about pregnancy brain. Evidently it was a real thing. “You’re pregnant. Incubating another human. There’s an alien being growing inside you.” She waited for some aha moment to wash over her friend.
Instead, Lacey cleared her throat. “Doc said as long as I take it easy I can still work from my bed. That means I have plenty of time to make sure Ms. Munyon gets the wedding of her dreams and still be ready to welcome baby P into the world.”
“Baby P?”
“Yeah, like a pea pod. Bodie thinks the ‘P’ refers to Phillips, of course. But I know it really means ‘P’ for pea pod.”
“You’re crazy. Like certifiable, you know?”
“There’s a lot riding on this. I’ve got to make sure this wedding goes off without a hitch. It’s our chance to put Ido on the map.”
“Déjà vu. You do realize you said those exact same words last year when you were working with Adeline Monroe on her big wedding. Or don’t you remember what a shit show that turned out to be?”
Lacey’s laugh pealed over the phone line. “I got a husband out of it, didn’t I?”
Zina shoved another chip in her mouth, bracing herself for the inevitable speech that surely would follow. This was the perfect segue into Lacey’s favorite topic of conversation: Zina’s love life.
“You know, Bodie’s got a new guy in his department. What if I order in and the two of you come to the house for dinner next week, and—”
“No.”
“But he’s perfect for you.”
Talking around the bite of nachos, Zina managed to ask, “What makes you say that?”
“He wants to settle down. He’s got a pension already going with the department and he’s super stable. Bought his own place just outside of town and has plenty of room for—”
“For what?”
Lacey paused. “For pets and babies and horses if you want them. Come on, aren’t you tired of living paycheck to paycheck? You deserve some downtime, someone to take care of you for a change.”
Zina took a calming breath in through her nose. “You know I love you, right?”
“Of course.”
“And you also know that my love life is a no-fly zone. Seriously. Cut it out, okay?”
“Maybe you’re not interested since you were locking lips with a certain penguin trainer this afternoon.”
Zina just about choked on her chip. “Where did you hear that?”
“Kirby said he caught a glimpse of the two of you standing there in broad daylight on the side of the road. If you’ve already got your eyes set on Alex, that’s fine. Bodie’s coworker was just a suggestion.”
“What is it with married people wanting other people to get tied down so bad? We never had conversations like this when we were both single.”
“That’s right. We used to stay out until the sun came up and thought peeing in public was being efficient,” Lacey said. “Times change.”
Zina eyed another chip. “What time do you want me to come over tomorrow?”
“Early afternoon? Say one?”
“I’ll see you then.” She hung up and set her phone back down on the bar. Times may change but she didn’t. She’d never allowed herself to imagine the kind of things Lacey yearned for. Being on her own for so long, she knew the only thing she could expect out of life was what she took from it. She didn’t deserve a happily-ever-after any more than the next person.
Dreams were just that . . . dreams. Her dreams had gotten her nowhere in the past and she’d finally stopped believing in them when she had to put in for an early hardship discharge from the military so she could come home and deal with her brother. Zeb was doing better now thanks to the Pets for Soldiers program she’d managed to get him into. But he might not ever be able to live on his own. He’d always need her to check in on him, make sure he kept up with his meds, and that the horrors of his military career didn’t pull him back down into the darkness.
And that was precisely why she could be the honorary aunt to Lacey and Bodie’s baby, and care for the hundreds of poor pit bulls that made their way through the rescue and feel good about the difference she was making in others’ lives. But dreaming about finding the kind of happiness Lacey had found? That was a waste of time.
* * *
* * *
Alex pulled to a stop in front of the
Burger Bonanza. Somehow he’d managed to burn the macaroni and cheese Char had set out for him to make for dinner. He was still trying to figure out how he’d accomplished that. Might have had something to do with accidentally leaving the burner on while he tried to break up a fight over whose turn it was to brush the blond Barbie’s hair.
Didn’t matter. What mattered was he had to feed four kids and Gramps, buy a piece of poster board, help Izzy salvage her project, and get everyone settled down for the night before Char got home. He’d tried to order pizza but there was only one place that delivered and they had an hour-long wait. He figured he’d be better off just running to the burger joint in Ido to grab everyone a bite. Everything would seem better on a full stomach.
“Everyone out of the truck. One, two, three . . .” He tapped the girls on the head as they piled out. Gramps stood on the sidewalk, the three older girls clustered around him. “Where’s Dolly?”
Izzy shrugged. Frankie messed around with something in her bag while Jordan’s fingers skimmed across the screen of her phone.
“Gramps? Where’s Dolly?” Alex peered into the back seat of the truck. It wasn’t that big. Nowhere for a kid to hide, not even one so small as his four-year-old niece.
Gramps shrugged and shuffled toward the door of the restaurant.
Dammit. The last time he’d seen his niece she’d been twirling around in that sparkly nightgown on the front lawn.
“Maybe you left her at home.” Jordan didn’t look up from her phone as she followed Gramps toward the door.
No. He couldn’t have left her at home. Could he? Char was going to have his balls on a skewer if he lost her daughter. And on his third night in town. “Gramps, take the girls inside and get a table. I’m going to run back and see if Dolly’s at the house.”
Izzy rolled her eyes. “Uncle Alex, Mom’s going to be mad.”
“You know, you don’t have to tell your mom everything.” He ushered the girls toward the door. “Jordan, you got this?”