Mack’s shoulders lifted and fell. “You don’t smile or laugh or do fun stuff with us. You just get mad at us. A lot.”
Brock closed his eyes at the rush of words. It was a lot to take in. Hard to process it all. He exhaled slowly. “So I don’t do fun stuff, and just get mad. Is that it?”
Mack nodded.
Brock felt like punching something. Instead he drew a deep breath, trying hard to sort out everything he was hearing. “Can you explain the stuff? What stuff are you missing out on?”
“Everything. Going to the movies and having friends over and taking trips together somewhere fun. The only time you’ve ever taken us anywhere was when you took us to boarding school.”
Molly opened the bathroom door to shout. “And Christmas! We don’t ever have Christmas or Valentine’s Day or Easter or Fourth of July. We don’t do holidays or anything fun because you don’t believe in fun. It’s against your religion apparently.”
Brock clapped a hand on his head thinking his brain was going to explode. “That’s ridiculous. You are both being ridiculous. Knock it off and grow up. You’re eleven, almost twelve—” he stopped midsentence, hearing himself.
Grow up.
He’d just told his eleven-year-olds to grow up. It’s what his dad always used to say to him and look how close he and his dad were today....
Brock exhaled slowly. If Amy were here, she’d be disgusted with him. If Amy were here...
... none of this would be happening.
The kids would have Christmas and Valentine’s Day and all the other days. They’d laugh and play because Amy believed in laughing and playing.
That’s why he’d fallen in love with Amy. She made him want to laugh and play and without her....
Without her, life was just hard. He missed her. He needed her. Not just for her laughter, but for her support.
Raising two kids was hard.
Brock had been doing it a long time on his own but God help him, he was tired and lonely and alone.
He swallowed with difficulty, aware that the twins were staring at him, anxious and worrying about what would happen next.
His eyes burned. His chest ached. He loved his children, he did, but he was beginning to realize his love might just not be enough.
“Go down and get a snack if you’re hungry,” he said quietly. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
In bed, in her room, Harley heard almost every word.
She didn’t want to hear but her room was just above Molly’s and the voices carried far too easily in the air duct. She couldn’t remember when she last felt so conflicted.
The kiss... shouldn’t have happened. But oh, the kiss, it’d been amazing. And she shouldn’t be thinking about Brock, or feeling sorry for him, or the kids. She shouldn’t be involved and she shouldn’t care.
But she did.
She didn’t want to worry about them, but she felt so terribly protective.
It was a mistake coming here. It was a mistake getting attached. She was so very attached.
Leaving would hurt so much.
And she was leaving the day after tomorrow.
Harley closed her eyes, drew a deep breath, trying to block out her thoughts, her feelings about returning to her family.
She couldn’t. She wasn’t ready to return to California.
A knock sounded on her door.
Harley left her bed, slipped her robe on over her nightgown and opened the door.
Mack stood in the hall with a plate of yesterday’s sugar cookies and a glass of milk. “We brought you a snack.” He smiled at her and yet his dark eyes looked anxious. “We hope you didn’t get in trouble with Dad.”
Harley took the cookies and milk. “Thank you for thinking of me, and no, I didn’t get in trouble with your dad.”
“He’s not really as scary as he seems,” Mack said under his breath.
“I don’t think he is scary at all.”
“You don’t?”
She shook her head, smiling. “No. I think he’s just tired and a little bit lonely. I have a feeling he still misses your mom.”
“She died when we were babies. We didn’t even know her.”
“But your dad loved your mom, and every time he looks at you, he thinks of her.” Harley set the cookies and milk on her nightstand. “He loved her a lot.”
Mack shrugged. “That’s what he says.”
“You don’t believe him?”
“Oh I believe him. But I kind of wish he didn’t love her so much.”
Harley blinked. “Why?”
“Because maybe then Dad would have married someone else and we would have had a mom.”
Oh.
Oh, baby boy.
Harley’s heart ached. Here he was, eleven years old and wondering what it would have been like to have a mom.
She reached for Mack and gave him a swift hug. These kids were stealing her heart, bit by bit, piece by piece. “Don’t give up hope,” she whispered in his ear before releasing him.
His eyes watered as he looked up at her. “I won’t.”
Harley went downstairs the next morning at five-thirty. It was the time she started her day but when she reached the kitchen the lights were already on, the coffee made, and the fire burning brightly in the big fireplace, which meant that Brock was up already. She wondered if one of the cows had been calving, or if he was just taking care of paperwork.
At six he walked through the kitchen to refill his coffee. She was making a breakfast casserole and she kept chopping the ham and Swiss cheese, trying to appear nonchalant but her pulse was racing in her veins and she wanted him to say something to help her make sense of what happened last night. That kiss had been so hot and intense... and so damn confusing, too.
She hadn’t slept well, tossing and turning, playing the kiss over and over in her head, all the while wondering what he’d say or do this morning. Now it was morning and she just needed to know if he was angry, disappointed, or maybe just regretful.
She dumped the cheese and meat into a bowl and started dicing the green onion.
“Harley.”
She looked up to see Brock at the island, hands on the counter.
She set the knife down on the cutting board. “Yes?”
“Did you in any way encourage the kids to go chop down their own Christmas tree?”
Harley wiped her hands on the skirt of her apron. “No.”
“You didn’t know they were tree hunting?”
“No.”
“And if I told you I didn’t approve of all this Christmas fuss, and didn’t want them to get caught up in any more fuss, what would you say?”
“I’d ask you to let us have one more fun day of fuss before I leave tomorrow.”
“But you wouldn’t go behind my back? You wouldn’t do something I wouldn’t approve of?”
“No.” Harley reached for the knife and the loaf of French bread. “I wouldn’t do that. I couldn’t do that.” She turned the bread and began slicing. “I don’t believe in breaking up families, and it would devastate me if I came between you and your kids.”
Brock stared at her a long moment. “You were married twelve years.”
“Almost twelve years.”
“Did you like being married?”
She paused slicing, her knife suspended in mid-air. She didn’t know how to answer that. She’d liked parts of marriage. Parts of it had been so hard. She hadn’t expected all the arguing. They’d fought over everything. Mainly money, and then family, sex, control. But always about money. He didn’t like budgets and saving. She’d been raised to be frugal, raised to bank your money, not spend it.
And then the discovery that David wanted out. He’d fallen in love with someone else.
“We were separated at the time my husband and kids died,” Harley said quietly, turning the loose bread slices sideways to cut them into strips. “No one knew that we were struggling. At least, I’d never told anyone in my family that David wanted a divorce. I couldn’t
.” She looked up at Brock. “I didn’t want a divorce. Maybe it wasn’t a perfect marriage, but it was my marriage, and David was my husband, and we had three beautiful children. And I lost it all because he went behind my back, ignored me.” She gave her head a small shake and returned to cubing the bread. “So no, I would never defy you. Not unless it was life and death.”
Brock’s dark head inclined. “Thank you,” he said quietly.
Harley worked hard to stay busy all day, and worked even harder to stay out of Brock’s way, so when the kids were at loose ends in the early afternoon, and Harley had caught up on her chores, she bundled up in layers and headed outside to find the kids, her pockets full of carrots and charcoal briquettes and an extra scarf to help them build a snowman.
At first the twins laughed at her, claiming they were too old to make snowmen, but when Harley started rolling snow around to make a big snow ball, they suddenly joined in, competing to see who could make the biggest ball and before she knew it, they were throwing snow and pushing each other into snow and chasing each other around the yard.
Harley screamed with laughter as Molly shoved a glove full of snow down the back of her coat, and inside her shirt. “That’s cold,” she shrieked, dancing from foot to foot as she swiped at the snow, trying to get it out.
The snow wasn’t going to come out. It was already melting and making her wet and cold, which meant the only thing left to do was give Molly a taste of her own medicine.