No Quick Fix (Torus Intercession 1)

“It’s all junk, Brann. I wanna come home and play with you.”

“Does your father know you’re calling me?”

“Yeah,” she said like I was an idiot. “’Course. I’m using his phone.”

“And where is he?”

“He’s looking at metal suns with Lydia.”

“I have no idea what that is.”

“Well, come see, then. It’s really lame.”

“You’re supposed to be spending time with your father and Lydia and your sister. I don’t want to interrupt family time.”

“It’s not family time if you’re not here; don’t be dumb.”

Her telling me I was part of her family only gave me a small heart attack. It didn’t kill me outright like I thought it would. Stupid kid making me have stupid feelings about things I couldn’t have. It was annoying as hell.

“Don’t you have to paint the flag of Argentina?” I reminded her.

“Oh, yeah,” she said, less than thrilled. “I forgot I told you about that.”

I chuckled because I could just imagine her little scrunched-up face. “I’ll see you guys at home later.”

“No,” she whined. “Come now.”

“I don’t—”

“Daddy!” she yelled into the phone, which nearly took out my right eardrum. “Talk to Brann and tell him to come get me.”

I was going to reiterate that I would see her back at the house, but then there was his voice, all silvery and rumbling on the other end of the line.

“Brann?”

“Hey, sorry about her calling me. You shouldn’t have let her have the—”

“Are you done visiting with the sheriff?”

“How did you know I was—”

“I saw you drive by in the patrol car a little while ago. I waved, but you didn’t see me.”

“I’m sorry. I was probably still reeling from having Mrs. Velazquez hit on me.”

He laughed and it rolled through me, warming me up all over and especially in places that were not helping me want to go back to Chicago anytime soon. Thinking sinful thoughts about a man who was about to get married was ten kinds of stupid.

“Every time she sees me, she tells me to leave Lydia,” he said, chuckling. “And her pumpkin cheesecake is amazing. I think she uses it as bait.”

“Yeah, I got offered the same thing.”

“Well, of course you did. I’d offer you pie myself.”

I would take whatever he offered in a heartbeat. “So,” I said, gulping around my rapidly closing throat, my voice a raspy whisper, “where are you?”

“We’re looking at metal sculptures toward the back. Olivia’s about to go catatonic, and April is walking around with her friend Lucy and her mother and a couple of other girls.”

“Okay then, is it all right if I come and get my girl, because she does actually need to color the map of Argentina and explain to her class about one great export, besides Lionel Messi, that the country has.”

“We’re almost done here; we can all go home together. Take a walk over here so we can ride home and stop at the store.”

It sounded so settled and domestic, and the longing that surged through me was a surprise. Because yes, I knew I wanted him, but to think there was even more I wanted—family, home—was not something I had given much thought to before.

“Don’t you have things to do with Lydia? I don’t want to—”

“Stop trying to get rid of me,” he teased. “I like spending time with my family too, you know. And Lydia has a lot to do, and now she has friends in town.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean to imply that you didn’t want to spend time with your girls or—”

“Not only the girls,” he murmured. “You just arrived, and you’re sort of interesting.”

My heart squeezed with words that seemed simply kind and generous on the surface but struck a chord in me much deeper.

“Walk faster, Calder,” he ordered and then hung up.

The man would be the death of me, I could tell.

I thought when Emery said metal sculptures that he meant small pieces that would go on an end table or something. That wasn’t what it was. These were ginormous, “fill up a wall in your house” sized installation works.

Olivia saw me and bolted over, grabbed hold of my hand, and squeezed tight.

“What?”

“Dying… of… boredom,” she choked out, pretending to faint.

I picked her up, and she draped herself over my shoulder. “Are you gonna make it?”

“Need… ice cream… hurry,” she said, her face muffled in the side of my neck.

“You’re layin’ it on a bit thick, don’t ya think?”

She coughed for emphasis as I felt a hand on the small of my back. Turning my head, I found Emery there beside me, close.

“Hey,” I greeted him, holding his reclining daughter. “I think Ophelia and I are gonna head home.”

“O-liv-vee-ah,” she said, enunciating the syllables for me. “Geez, how old are you?”

I started laughing, and so did she, and I couldn’t miss the way Emery was looking at me. He liked me as much as his kid did, or I was getting really bad at reading people.