Unbreak My Heart (Fostering Love 1)

The first couple of weeks after the accident, my mom and aunt had stayed in San Diego helping Shane and me with the kids. They’d made sure everyone was fed, and someone was always with Gunner at the hospital, and a million different other things that we hadn’t had the energy to deal with. But they had lives in Oregon, and once they’d left, it had been up to us to get the kids back to some kind of normalcy.

Normal. I wasn’t even sure what that meant anymore.

Shane had been on bereavement leave for a little over a week and had used some time he’d had saved up for another week after that, but he’d had to go back to work. He didn’t have the luxury of wallowing or making sure his kids were okay before he had to start leaving the house every day, all day.

So I’d been there.

I’d sent some of my clients to other designers that I trusted and had taken over a life that wasn’t really mine. I cared for children that I loved more than myself, gave up the small semblance of a life I’d had before, and became a stand-in. And I didn’t regret it. Not for a second.

But it was times like yesterday—when Shane had called me to tell me that I wouldn’t be “needed” because his foster mom was in town—that I remembered how little power I had when it came to the kids.

It killed me.

“I’ll take her up to bed,” Shane said suddenly, coming up behind where we were sitting.

“She’s fine where she is,” I replied without looking at him. I could feel my chest growing tight as I imagined how yesterday must have gone. Sage couldn’t have gotten much sleep if she was tired enough to fall asleep over the giddy screams of her brothers.

“She’s getting too big for you to carry around—”

“She’s fine.”

Aunt Ellie looked between us, her brows furrowed, before standing up. “I’m going to check on Gunner.”

I wished Shane would just walk away while my emotions were so close to the surface, but of course, he didn’t.

“Sorry I snapped at you,” Shane murmured, sitting down in the vacated spot next to me.

“It’s fine.”

“You’re just here a lot. I know you had your own life before this—”

I snorted before I could stop myself, cutting off his words. I’d barely had a life. I’d been with his wife every single day he wasn’t.

“—but we need to talk,” he finished.

“About what?” I asked, stomach turning.

“Deployment’s coming up,” he said quietly, glancing down at Sage to make sure she was still asleep.

“I thought you were going to try and get out of it?” I hissed back in surprise, looking over to find Gavin peeing in the grass. Ugh.

“I can’t, Katie,” he replied softly, the old endearment making me jolt. “I can’t send my guys without me.”

“So you’re just going to leave your kids here instead?”

“You don’t understand—”

“Nope, I don’t.”

I finally turned to look at him, and I wanted to slap the determined look off his face, but I didn’t have a chance to say anything else.

“Look who’s awake!” Aunt Ellie called cheerfully, carrying Gunner out the back door. Oh my God, had he grown in the day I hadn’t seen him? He looked bigger.

“Sage, wake up, baby,” I called, jostling her a little on my lap. “Brother’s awake. It’s time to do cake.”

She woke with a jerk, the same way she’d been waking up for the past year, and looked around in confusion.

“Cake time, princess,” Shane told her with a small smile, climbing to his feet.

When we got to the patio table, I stole Gunner from my aunt.

“Look at you, big boy,” I said quietly as he stuffed his face into my neck. “Is it your birthday?”

He pulled away and smiled up at me, and my heart stuttered.

“When did the top tooth come in?” I asked Shane, glancing over to find him staring at us.

“I noticed it last night.”

“Shit, I missed it,” I whispered, smiling at Gunner. “Look at that chomper, dude, you’re going to be asking for steak soon.”

“I think we have time before that happens,” Shane joked, scooting around me with a hand at my back so he could get to the table.

I closed my eyes against the small touch. It was times like these, simple conversations when he used the word we, that I had to steel myself against. As much as I loved them, and as much as I took care of them—those children were not mine. I had to remember that.

* * *

I left the house at three, just like Shane had asked me to.

I knew he was having a hard day, and frankly I was, too. I didn’t want to get into it with him.

We’d had a sort of uneasy truce going on for the past year. While Shane was good with daddy stuff, he knew his limits, and I liked to think that he knew how much he relied on me even though he’d never acknowledged it. I wasn’t the babysitter—our roles weren’t that simple.