“They haven’t asked to meet him yet?”
“They said eventually he’ll have to fill out papers, but since he’s not living with me and we’re not engaged, they’d wait.” She gave a little smile. “Maybe they didn’t want me to scare him off.”
“Can’t scare him off if you don’t have him.”
“He doesn’t exist.”
Cassidy shook her head, her chest feeling like curdled milk swished around in it. This was the second big lie in her life. The first was allowing Torque to serve her time. Technically she’d never lied about that, but she’d allowed him to.
Harris glanced at her watch. “Oh wow. It’s late. I have a meeting at the hospital about helping install a children’s library in the new wing of the hospital.” She slipped her sweater back on and headed for the door. “I gave you a good recommendation. If they need something more, I’ll do whatever I can.”
Cassidy hugged her. “I know. Thanks so much. Those little girls have stolen my heart, and Jamal is such a proud big brother. He’s so happy to have them here.”
Kelly came over and gave Cassidy a hug as well. “I have to head down to the children’s center and help serve dinner. Call me if you need me.”
“I will. Thanks so much.”
Cassidy shut the door behind them. As if on cue, one of the twins started screaming. The second one joined in. As she hurried to them, she wondered if she really was maybe biting off too much for a single woman. But Jamal needed to grow up with his sisters, and they deserved to know their big brother.
Dodging the blocks, a baby doll with a broken arm, and several other brightly colored noisemakers, she sat on the floor and pulled each crying twin onto her lap.
Tomorrow, she’d be back at the office, and they’d be at day care. Maybe they deserved a mother who would stay home with them. Or a family where they’d have both a mom and a dad. That seemed to be her life now, trying to figure out what was best for her children, for the defendants on her docket, and for the inmates she had been fighting for.
Everything her life consisted of now, aside from the residual ads that she’d shot last year and were still running, had been born of that night when Torque had shoved her flip phone and purse at her and told her to leave. She couldn’t waste a life that had been bought with such a sacrifice. Keeping this little family together—Jamal and his sisters—was just one more thing in the long list of things that she’d tried to do to make her life count. To say thank you.
Maybe that was thanks enough, since after seeing him today, it was obvious he didn’t want anything else from her.
Chapter 4
Torque climbed the steps to his gram’s trailer. Everything seemed a little more worn, tired. Or maybe that was just him. Worn and tired.
He thought he’d be jubilant on his first day of freedom, but maybe the stress or excitement had been too much and worn him out. Whatever it was, he climbed the steps wearily, giving two short raps on the door before walking in. The scent of roast beef mingled with the unique scent of Gram’s home, one thing that hadn’t changed at all in the time he’d been gone.
Turbo and Tough sat at the small kitchen table with Gram looking even smaller and more frail than she had when she’d visited him in prison.
His brothers got up and walked over, hugging him and slapping him on the back. Torque felt the oddest urge to cry—an urge he couldn’t remember feeling since the day his mother’s casket went in the ground. That day, too, he’d hugged his brothers and fought tears. He’d determined to be the best big brother ever, since his little brothers didn’t have a mother or a dad. It was also the last thing he’d ever said to his mother, since her dying words to him had extracted his promise to take care of them. As sincere as an eleven-year-old could ever be, he’d looked his mother in her beautiful sea-green eyes and said, “I promise I’ll be the best big brother ever.”
He’d been determined to keep that promise.
Then a pair of seductive blue eyes had slanted a few looks at him, and his promise had flown out the window, disappearing like exhaust fumes on a windy day. He’d sacrificed the last years of his brothers’ high school and the all-important first few years of new adulthood on the altar of being a playgirl’s prince charming.
Man, he was a stupid little snit when he was seventeen.
“Where’s your escort?” Turbo gave him one last slap then bent down to look out the window. “Didn’t hear her pull in.”
“Her?” Tough asked, his brows drawn down over the same brown eyes that all three brothers shared.
“Cassidy Kimball. She called me a few weeks ago and mumbled something about a sponsor program and asked if she could pick you up.” Turbo gave a crooked grin. He’d always smiled more than anyone else Torque knew, and his laughing eyes hadn’t changed much. Maybe just a little older. Maybe there was a little wisdom lurking in their depths now. “I’ve seen her picture on the billboards on the interstate. Figured it wouldn’t be a hardship to ride beside her for three hours.”
“Get out of the way and let an old lady hug her grandson.” Gram pushed Tough and Turbo aside. Torque didn’t remember her using a cane before. He squeezed her gently, her small figure so much more frail than he’d remembered. A part of him wanted to be bitter at the wasted years, and he had to swat that part away. He had no one but himself to blame. Cassidy shouldn’t have gotten in his truck, but he’d been the fool who had jumped in after her, and he’d been the even bigger fool who had taken the blame for what happened next.
He squeezed Gram a little harder. A shaft of nerves pinched in his stomach. “Where’s Mrs. Conrad?” The widow of the man his pickup had killed that night.
Gram’s hand patted his back. “She’s fine. Your brothers and that fancy woman been looking after her.”
He didn’t ask who the fancy woman was. There was a more important question. “She willing to see me, you think?”
“Land’s sake. She sure is. She was broken up about losing her husband for a while, of course she was. But accidents happen, and she’s a God-fearing woman. Forgiveness came to her eventually.”
His stomach unwound, and he released the breath he didn’t realize he was holding. “That’s good. I need to apologize.”
“She’ll hear it, son. And she’ll forgive you. She wanted to see you in prison, but I told her that tweren’t no place for the likes of her.”
“She’s a fancy lady?” Torque asked with a little tilt of his lips, imitating Gram’s last statement.
“You get yourself rid of that smart mouth, young man. You mighta got away with that in prison, but there’ll be no smartin’ off here.”
Over Gram’s head, Turbo mimed her and then bit his thumb at Torque, a gesture that was at once as familiar as breathing, yet felt like a million years ago that they’d borrowed the gesture from Shakespeare, and Torque’s eleventh grade English class, and used it among themselves, since using the normal certain single finger gesture would get their mouths washed out with soap, never mind their mouths hadn’t said anything.
Torque couldn’t stay serious in the face of Turbo’s grin, which was pretty much the typical reaction of anyone around Turbo, and he bit his own thumb in response.
Tough, not to be left out, and never one to waste words when a gesture would do, bit his thumb as well.
Gram didn’t even look at them. “I know exactly what that means, and none of you are too big to bend your head over my kitchen sink. I’ll expect you all to keep a civil tongue in your heads. Or else.”
Gosh, it was good to be home.
THE NEXT AFTERNOON followed an especially stressful day at work in which Cassidy questioned her decision to become a public defender. Why hadn’t she chosen the starvation mixed with endless exercise, constant cutthroat competition, backbiting, and relative uncertainty of even getting a paycheck by pursuing a modeling career? Which, she had to say, juggling one crabby twin in one arm and trying to appease the other who was seated in the shopping cart, seemed like child’s play to the lif
e and work she currently had. At least today.
She pushed the cart past the candy aisle and called to Jamal, “This way, hon.”
“But you promised me candy if I got an A on my book report and poster.”
She was the most horrible mother in the world, because she had, indeed, promised him candy. “Did you get it back?”
“Today. It’s in my book bag.”
If she didn’t give him what she promised, she’d be even worse than the most horrible mother in the world, but there was not a single cell in her body that wanted the fight, whining, and potential meltdown and fit that would ensue if she took her tired, crabby, hungry twins down that aisle. She’d been trying so hard to get them all to eat better. She didn’t have to be model thin anymore, but she didn’t want her kids to die of heart attacks in elementary school, either. The adoption agency would probably have an opinion on that.
It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him to wait until another day, but she couldn’t get the words past her lips after seeing the hopeful, eager, proud look on Jamal’s face. He’d worked hard on that project, despite his frustration with reading the book that was slightly above his level.
Nessa, in her arms, yanked at a handful of her hair. It slipped from the no-nonsense bun she’d piled it into before dawn this morning. After a few more good yanks, Nessa dropped the hair and started to fight Nissa for the necklace Cassidy had forgotten to remove after work.
Nessa poked Nissa in the eye. Nissa started crying and scratched Nessa. Then, in less than a microsecond flat, they were both screaming at the top of their lungs. Nessa wanted down and Nissa wanted up, and Jamal still stood there in the candy aisle, looking for all the world like a lost puppy begging for one tiny little scrap of food to fill his aching tummy.
“Yes,” Cassidy said.
Jamal tilted his head. He mouthed a word that Cassidy couldn’t hear over the screaming of the twins. She read his lips. “What?”
“Yes,” she said in as quiet a scream as she could and still be heard over the twins. She continued in the same tone, “Pick it out and meet me in the vegetable section.” She would atone for the little bit of candy by buying more fresh vegetables that she would be too tired to cook when she got home.
Thankful for her small-town grocery store—she would never leave her eight-year-old alone in a big-city supercenter—she tried to give both twins what they wanted as she used her hip and the occasional knee to push her shopping cart toward the fresh vegetables. She could shop for healthy stuff for the rest of the week and buy just one frozen pizza for supper tonight.
One clerk gave her a pitying look. The next one she passed, a younger version of herself, gave a judgmental frown at the noise her children were making. Or maybe she heard Cassidy tell her eight-year-old to pick his own candy out. Whatever. She’d looked at parents the same way before she had children. It was harder than it looked, and if the twins weren’t screaming so loud, she might have told the girl that.
At least the store wasn’t too busy. Cassidy was able to fly along, grabbing carrots, spinach, and several zucchini and throwing them in the cart. There was an older gentleman standing in front of the potatoes that she was able to squeeze by while snagging a five-pound bag, and a tall, broad-shouldered man wearing a ball cap who stood in front of the mushrooms. Jamal loved mushrooms, and she wasn’t leaving the store without them. One would think the guy would hear the kids screaming and at least hurry his selection, but no, he stood there with one hand in his pocket like he had all day to decide on sliced or whole. Like it even really freaking mattered.
Cassidy bent and picked up Nessa’s sippy cup for the eighth time. Even though grocery stores had to be filthy germ pits, she’d quit wiping it off on her dry-clean-only skirt after the third time. Nessa batted it away. Cassidy lost her grip, and the cup flew over, smacking Nissa on the head. Her screams ratcheted up, and she jerked her little body around, flinging her own sippy cup.
It was one of those slow-motion things where Cassidy watched the cup tumble through the air. Even before it hit the man just below his ear, Cassidy realized who it was. The hit. Like thunder, the thunk came after. He turned. No surprise in his eyes.
A million thoughts flew through her head, but the one that made the most impact was he knew it was me and he was ignoring me.
He truly did hate her.
With the horrible day she’d had, with her one client being one of those who was guilty as sin, and she had to force herself to defend him, the judge moving the trial date to accommodate his hemorrhoid surgery, and her coworker quitting, dumping her workload onto Cassidy, then with twins missing their naps and there being no food in her house, on top of the candy issue and her acute insecurity about her even being fit to be a mother to a used doll baby, let alone real, live children, somehow, Torque’s hate on top of everything made her stupid, traitorous eyes water.
But she would show up in court naked with bunny ears strapped to her head before she cried in front of this man.
She shoved the cart with her hip, eyeing the sippy cup that had landed between Torque’s boots. “I’m sorry,” she yelled, keeping her head lowered as she swooped down to retrieve the cup, planning to grab it, grab her other twin and Jamal, and drive half an hour to Altoona to the closest McDonald’s drive-thru. At least if she ate the fast food with them, they could all die of a heart attack together.
But she hadn’t anticipated him bending down to get the cup, hadn’t thought she’d end up frozen, six inches from his serious brown eyes, hadn’t counted on the powerful attraction she always felt in his presence being amplified with two toddlers screaming in her ears.
She couldn’t move. Her heart thudded in her throat. Her breath came in small gasps. The world was still turning, the twins still crying, and life went on. For everyone but her.
Her neck grew warm, and her arm trembled with the awkward way she held Nessa, but she couldn’t cut her gaze from his.
He looked away first. His eyes fell to her lips. Which were suddenly dry, and she licked them. Something hot flared in his gaze, before his eyes shuttered completely. He straightened, holding the cup.
Feeling as graceful as a pregnant elephant, Cassidy managed to get upright with Nessa still on her hip, despite her shaking legs and heart.
“Give me your list. I’ll do your shopping. You can take them home.” His deep voice cut through the twins crying. As if by magic, they both stopped, and with puffy little breaths and wet cheeks, they stared at the dark stranger.
“I couldn’t ask you to do that.”
One brow raised. “It would be a mercy for the other shoppers in the store.”
No doubt.
“Consider it your good deed for the day.”
Anger flared before she realized his eyes held what could be considered a twinkle.
She grabbed the diaper bag and pulled her keys from her purse. “It’s on a blue sheet of paper. There’s cash in my wallet, and my address is on my driver’s license.”
“You’re leaving your purse with me?”
“Yes.” After all, if he skipped town and drained every cent in her accounts, it still wouldn’t be as much as she owed him. She glanced at her purse, stamped with multicolored flowers on an off-white background. She’d bought it from the local discount store specifically because it looked like it would hide a multitude of dirt and was big enough to double as a diaper bag if the need arose. “Problem with it?”
Lifting one broad shoulder, he said, “It doesn’t really go with my outfit, and I think it’ll make my butt look big.”
He didn’t crack a smile. His eyes barely flickered. She’d forgotten how much she loved his droll humor.
She smiled, feeling some of her tiredness, if not her hurt, drain away.
“Hey, Mom. Who’s he?”
Cassidy turned. Jamal staggered toward her carrying the biggest bag of candy she’d ever seen. It must have weighed ten pounds. So that’s what had taken him so long. True to his nature, he’d studied every bo
x and bag in the candy aisle and picked out the biggest. Lesson learned. Next time, she’d have to be more specific. One piece of candy.
“This is Mr. Baxter.” Like a coordinated event, the twins started crying together. Cassidy raised her voice to be heard over them. “He’s going to finish our grocery shopping. Put the candy in the cart and come with me.” She glanced at Torque. Any good nature had disappeared from his eyes. His face was a closed, unreadable mask. “Is that still okay?”
He shrugged. Her attention was caught again by the width of his shoulders, but the nagging thought that he was irritated with her somehow wouldn’t leave.
She wasn’t going to turn down help. “Come on, Jamal.”
Chapter 5
Torque watched her walk away. Slender and tall like she’d always been. The top of her head came to his nose. She fit perfectly in his arms.
He glanced again at the purse she’d so casually left behind, then at her retreating back, a baby on each hip and the little boy following her. The kid was eight maybe? Nine? He’d only been in prison a year or two before she was off with another man.
Cassidy and Torque, they’d never been exclusive. Never even dated, really. But he’d never been with another woman. Hadn’t been interested.
He turned to her purse and gingerly picked it up. Apparently, she’d gotten over him pretty quickly. Or hadn’t been that into him to begin with, which was what he’d figured out in prison. He was just her man-toy. Or some kind of plaything that she trifled with when all of her other boyfriends were busy.
He’d known it, but it still hurt to have it shoved in his face when that little boy called her “mom.”
Opening the purse wider, he searched without touching anything for the blue list. Wonder what Mr. Cassidy would say about Torque riffling through his wife’s purse. The man had better not be home. If he were there, sitting on the couch with his feet propped up while Cassidy struggled through the grocery store still dressed in her work clothes and juggling two screaming babies and trailing a nine-year-old with the instincts of a street rat—Torque eyed the ten-pound bag of candy—then it wouldn’t be hard to want to use a few of the moves he’d learned in prison to teach the man a thing or two about taking care of his wife.
What He Wants Page 4