On the Fly (9 page)

Brenden finished with me and moved
back over in front of Maddie. He reached for the washcloth. “Can I
see?”

Jamie took that as his cue to clean
the massive pool of blood under my feet. I lifted them out of his
way, and he gave me a sheepish grin. After a brief glance up at
Jamie, Maddie nodded at Brenden and pulled the cloth away. Her cut
had already clotted, so there was no more bleeding. But he still
took the tube of ointment and squeezed out a little bit, then
fished a bright pink Barbie Band-Aid out of the first aid kid,
settling it into place over her cut. He didn’t touch her anywhere
other than where he had to in order to tend to her wound, which
helped keep me from spazzing out on him.

“
All better?” he asked
her.

She nodded again.

“
Good.” He started putting
away the first aid supplies.

I wanted him to leave, because I
couldn’t decide whether to like him or run him off. He was kind of
gruff, but he and Jamie had been the calm ones who had kept their
cool and sorted out the chaos. But how could I know if I should
trust him—either of them? Maybe they would go with a little urging,
though. I could drop a few hints that my kids and I needed to get
on with our day.

“
How about you go check on
Tuck and Pumpkin and make sure you two get some clothes on?” I said
to Maddie. “Then I’ll figure out what to do for
breakfast.”

Maddie nodded one more time and eased
herself off the table. She headed down the hall but stopped and
returned before she got to Tuck’s room. “Mr. Jamie, I’m sorry I
messed up your surprise.” She didn’t quite look up at him, but that
was still a huge step for her. Maddie didn’t really talk to men
much. Or to any adult besides me and her counselor.

Before I had wrapped my mind around
it, she really threw me for a loop. “And thank you for taking care
of me and Mommy, Mr. Soupy,” she whispered. Then she spun around
again and was in Tuck’s bedroom with the door closed behind
her.

Mr.
Soupy
. I hadn’t missed what she’d called
him, and neither had he if the tic that jumped to life in his jaw
was any indication.

Brenden came back over to me to put
medical tape on my bandaged feet—a necessity to keep the gauze in
place. He’d gone through probably half my first aid supplies in
trying to take care of me. His eyes flicked to mine for just a
second, but he didn’t say anything.

I tried to ignore the fact that I’d
have to go stock up at the pharmacy again—and I tried to ignore
him, too, because I was confused about what was the best thing to
do with him. Instead of thinking any more about Brenden, I smiled
at Jamie. “You’re good with Tuck.”

He blushed again, returning the mop to
the closet and turning his back in what seemed to me to be an
effort to hide his embarrassment. “Yeah. Well…I’ve had lots of
practice. I’m the oldest of seven. All boys. The youngest is about
Maddie’s age.”

That explained a lot.

I figured I should say something to
Brenden, too, about how he’d been good with Maddie. He’d even
thought to use a Barbie Band-Aid, not one of the plain, flesh-toned
ones. I couldn’t seem to make myself say anything, though. I didn’t
particularly want him to be good with Maddie. I wanted him to stay
away from her, from both of us. Then I felt like a hypocrite,
because I wasn’t having the same reactions to Jamie as I was to
Brenden.

So, I didn’t say anything at
all.

After a few moments, Brenden let out a
weird grunting sound, but he finally released my feet.

I set them on the floor and pushed
some of my weight onto them—not enough to stand up but enough to
give me an idea of how it would feel. It felt like hell. I was
probably lucky I didn’t need stitches. Or maybe I did need
stitches. I should probably sit down and take a look at them
myself, but not until I’d replenished my first aid
supplies.

I tried not to let the guys see how
much pain I was in. They’d already done more than
enough.

“
Thank you—both of you—so
much,” I said. I just wanted them to leave so I could decide what
to do about the two of them. Even more than that, I didn’t know how
I felt about not knowing whether to trust them or not, and thinking
along those lines only left me confused.

“
No problem, Rach,” Jamie
said. He smiled at me again, making his dimples his most prominent
feature. “Now, about breakfast…”

I had my mouth open and was already
shaking my head to turn down whatever he was going to offer to do
because they had both already done far more than necessary, but
Brenden cut me off.

“
Why don’t you go put your
clothes on, too?” he said brusquely, in a way that made me wonder
if he was angry, and if so,
why
? “We’ll all go out.”

If the chaotic
events of the morning had sorted anything out, it
was that Rachel Shaw needed a keeper. She was one of those moms who
couldn’t remember to take care of herself because she was too busy
taking care of not only her own kids but everyone else around her.
That never worked. Not really. Women like that just lost
themselves, lost who they were, all in the name of taking care of
the whole world. They spread themselves too thin, and they couldn’t
really help anyone, not like that. Not if they didn’t take care of
themselves first.

Thank God my mom hadn’t been like
that. She’d always been around to help me and Dana when we needed
it, but she didn’t coddle us along. Not even when Dana was raped
and retreated into her shell of self-preservation. Mom had done
everything she could, but she’d recognized that only Dana could get
herself back out of it, and it would have to be in her own
time.

Rachel was nothing like Mom. It was as
if she wanted to put her kids in a protective bubble and keep them
there. That wasn’t good for her or for them. Watching her bleed all
over her dining room while she tried to clean up her daughter’s
almost nonexistent cut had made it abundantly clear to me, even if
it wasn’t clear to her.

I didn’t particularly want to be her
keeper, even though she definitely needed one. The way she’d
completely overreacted to her daughter’s cut, to the point that she
seriously hurt herself, proved that to me. I was way more attracted
to her than I could understand. Whether I wanted to be that for her
or not, she didn’t want it. At least not from me. That would mean
struggling with her every step of the way, and all because she was
too scared or proud or whatever to accept help when it was offered.
But I couldn’t shake the feeling that I probably should be her
keeper. That thought opened up a whole new bucket of trouble, one
that I wasn’t ready to look inside.

By the time I’d put my suitcase away
and changed clothes—I’d gotten some blood on the knees of my jeans
while I was cleaning Rachel up—Babs was dressed and ready. We went
across the hall and knocked.

Tuck opened the door with a huge grin.
“I’m ready, Mr. Jamie!” he shouted. He had put on pants and a
T-shirt. He hadn’t even attempted to zip his pants, showing off his
Spiderman Underoos. At least he had underwear on. His sneakers
weren’t tied, either, and the tongues were hanging out. Amid all
that, he’d already pulled on his coat.

Babs picked him up, tossed him over
his shoulder, and carried him back inside. “Not quite,” he said,
laughing. He tossed Tuck down on the sofa and set to work
straightening out the mess of his clothes.

I followed them in and closed the door
behind me so the cat wouldn’t escape again.

The set-up of their place was exactly
like ours, with the master bedroom on one end and the other
bedrooms on the opposite end. The open living and dining area was
in the middle of it all.

Maddie stood off by the hallway to
what I assumed to be the kids’ rooms, fully dressed but with that
wary look in her eyes. I still hadn’t gotten over her calling me
Mr. Soupy. I wasn’t sure what to do with that, let alone with her
shyness. When we were kids, Zee and Dana and I, we’d all been
boisterous and energetic and all up in everybody’s business. Maddie
Shaw was nothing like we had been.

I smiled, thinking maybe that would
help. “Is your mom ready?” I asked her.

She shrugged her shoulders in lieu of
answering me, then hurried past me into the master. A minute later,
she came back holding her mother’s hand…but it was Rachel I was
more focused on. Every step she took had her wincing and grimacing,
and she kept sucking in quick breaths of air.

I should have taken her to the
emergency room like I’d initially thought to do. I probably should
do that now.

Instead, I crossed over to her and
picked her up. She was tiny—couldn’t weigh more than a hundred
pounds or so—and she felt way too good being right up next to me
like that.

This could be dangerous, letting
myself think about how nice it felt to hold her. She was a single
mom. I had to remember that.

“
What are you doing?” she
asked, sounding all sorts of breathless and sexy, even though I was
positive the breathlessness was because of pain.

Her question was a good one because I
was having a really hard time looking away from her cute button
nose and the smattering of freckles that fell across it. Until I
looked at her lips. Then I couldn’t look anywhere else.

Tuck’s giggles finally caught my
attention and reminded me that we weren’t alone—far from it. I
looked over. Babs had finished straightening his
clothes.

I cleared my throat and returned my
gaze to Rachel. “I’m carrying you because your feet are too torn
up. You need to stay off them.”

“
I can’t stay off them,”
she said. “I’m a mom. I have to take care of my kids. I have to
start a new job tomorrow.”

Why did she always feel the need to
argue with me? Or maybe it just seemed like she was always arguing
with me.

“
You can stay off them any
time I can pick you up.” I didn’t want to let the implications of
that sink in. “Come on. Let’s go eat.” I took her out the door,
grabbing her coat from the hall closet, and taking her keys from
the hook just inside the door.

Babs followed behind us, holding onto
Tuck’s hand. He held his other out for Maddie, but she hurried
forward and took her brother’s instead. Then I locked the
door.

By the time we got down to the parking
garage, Rachel had given up on whatever had kept her tense in my
arms and put her arm around my shoulder for support. I liked it a
lot. Too much.

I opened the passenger side door to my
SUV and started to put her in it, but she squirmed to get
out.

“
The kids’ booster seats.
They have to have them.”

“
Give me her keys and I’ll
get them,” Babs said.

I tossed them his way. “You don’t have
to do everything yourself,” I said to her once he headed over to
her car, both kids in tow.

She let out a little laugh, but she
definitely wasn’t amused. I shut her door, but I caught her rolling
her eyes through the window.

Babs returned and started getting the
kids situated in the back, and Rachel moved as though to get out
again.

I turned around to block her. “What
now?”

“
My purse. I didn’t bring
my purse.”

All she needed was a damn key to get
back in her place, which I’d grabbed for her on the way out. “You
don’t need your purse,” I said. I probably sounded a little too
gruff. I couldn’t help it. She was frustrating me, and I didn’t
like that it was so easy for her to frustrate me.

“
To pay.” She said it as
though that should explain everything.

I backed her into her seat again and
pulled her seatbelt, securing it in place around her. “You aren’t
paying, so you don’t need to worry about it. You don’t need your
purse.” I let my hand linger a little too long by her hip before I
jerked it away.

“
But—”

“
No buts. You fed Babs and
Razor the other day. You intended to feed Babs again this morning.
You’re not going to pay.” Then I closed her door and went around to
the driver’s side. By the time I got there, Babs had both kids and
himself in place in the back.