The Long and Winding Road (The Seafare Chronicles 4)

We reach the bottom of the stairs, and before I can walk to the door, he spins me around and kisses me hard, mouth working over mine, the barest hints of his tongue on my lips. Pretty much everything short-circuits at that, like it normally does with him, even after all these years. I’m rather breathless when he pulls away and can’t even glare at the smug little twist in his smile.

“Good?” he asks me.

“Blargh,” I tell him.

“Good,” he says, pushing me toward the door. He turns to the living room, where his phone has started ringing again, and whoever it is better have a good goddamn reason for blowing up his phone like that.

The doorbell rings again.

“Huh,” I hear Otter say. “It’s Megan.”

Which, honestly, given that she just had another OB appointment (it’s like she’s going daily), is not making me feel any better. I don’t know how parents of serial killers ever show their faces in public again. I mean, what the hell would the neighbors think?

The phone rings again.

There’s a pounding on the door.

I open it just as I hear Otter say, “Is everything okay, Megan?”

I’m thinking about how things are changing.

I’m thinking about how we’re having a kid.

I’m thinking about how I would go to the ends of the earth for the man standing in the living room.

I’m thinking about my brother, who is finally coming home.

I’m thinking about his boyfriend, who I think knows the surprise Otter and I have, even though we’ve been trying to keep it a secret.

I’m thinking about my best friend and his wife. How happy they’re going to be for us.

I’m thinking about their parents, who will love this kid so much that he’ll never be alone.

I’m thinking about a lovely, crazy, beautiful old woman who had gathered us up in her arms and did her best to shelter us from the sharp edges of the world.

I’m thinking about everything we’ve gone through to get to this point.

But I’m not thinking about her. Even though she was the catalyst for it all, never her.

She’s no longer part of my vocabulary. She doesn’t have the right to be.

Maybe there are days when she’s there, just skirting the edges of my thoughts. But I don’t ever allow myself to focus on her. Not now. Not after all she’s done. Not since the Kid came home from his wayward journey in Idaho to see for himself what she’d become.

So, no.

I’m not expecting this.

There’s a little girl standing on the porch of the Green Monstrosity. And maybe I’m a little distracted, trying to half listen to Otter on the phone behind me, but there’s something about her, with her dark hair braided down the back of her head, loose little wisps hanging around her face. There’s a smudge of dirt on her nose. She’s got a backpack slung over her shoulder, her hand tight on the strap. Her eyes are wide as she stares up at me. She looks exhausted, and there’s something familiar about her that I can’t quite place.

“Can I help you?” I ask, trying not to show this little girl that I’m pretty much a fucking lunatic who is capable of impregnating a woman with a serial killer baby who could be born with a tail.

“Slow down, slow down,” Otter says into the phone. “Say that again, Megan.”

“Man,” the little girl on the porch says. “He sure wasn’t kidding. The color of this house is like an abomination against Mother Nature.”

A buzzing starts in my ears. “Who wasn’t kidding?”

She rolls her eyes, and I take a step back as if I’ve been shoved. I know that look. “Tyson,” she says. “You must be Bear. Derrick.”