Unexpected Family

“Hey.” Lucy lifted her hand in a little wave.

“Hey.” Aaron’s voice broke over the word and he got so red the tips of his ears lit on fire. He vanished down the hall to the laundry room.

“I came by to do a car exchange, but Reese wasn’t up yet.”

The lump on the couch groaned and pulled the quilt up over his head.

“Still isn’t.” Jeremiah sighed and rubbed his hands over his face. “Casey, buddy, could you stop crying?”

Like a faucet was turned off, the whimpering stopped.

“Are you mad?” Casey whispered.

“Of course not,” Lucy answered for him.

“Yes, he is,” Ben said, always ready for a fight, and Jeremiah sighed again—bone-weary of these fights he never won no matter what he did.

“Come on, Casey and Ben,” Lucy said, “let’s get this stuff cleaned up.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Jeremiah said, stepping forward to take one of the towels in Casey’s hand.

She smiled at him, sympathetic and perhaps a little pitying, which was exactly the opposite of the way he wanted her to look at him and it pissed him off. He wanted her to look at him the way she had last night. He wanted that little bubble of time to be unbroken, unsullied by reality, so he could think about it alone in his cold bed. But having her here, in the unflinching light of day, robbed him of the fantasy.

“I’ll just take you home.” He was way gruffer than he intended and he saw Casey look over at him full of anxiety.

God, I just cannot get this shit right.

“Don’t worry about it,” Lucy said, picking up toys and stacking them on the coffee table.

“You don’t have to clean this up.” He stepped forward, taking the toys from her, trying to get her to stand. Trying actually to get her out of here, but she was stubbornly reluctant.

“It’s almost done, isn’t it, Casey?” She winked at Casey, who’d thrown all the kitchen towels over the lake of water next to the couch. Great, just great. Now, I’ll have to dry all of them. But Casey beamed at her and it was the last damn straw.

“I said stop!”

Everyone halted and turned to stare at him. Casey’s lower lip started to tremble. The front door slammed shut and he figured that was Ben running out to the barn, which is what he did every time Jeremiah yelled.

“Okay.” Lucy stood and dropped the car keys on the coffee table. “Don’t worry about the ride, I’ll just call Mia and wait for her outside.” She gave Casey a big grin and the little boy stared after her with his broken heart in his eyes.

“See you,” Lucy said without making any eye contact, and Jeremiah knew, he totally understood, that he was the biggest asshole in the world. Yelling at kids and a woman who were just trying to help.

The front door shut and in the silence Casey’s big five-year-old eyes damned him.

“Hey.” Aaron came back in the room reeking of that deodorant all the preteen boys wear, convinced the smell made them irresistible to girls. “Where’s Lucy?”

“Jeremiah scared her away,” Casey said.

“Uncle J.” Aaron sighed and then walked into the kitchen for something to eat.

“I was a jerk, wasn’t I?” he asked Casey, who nodded.

“I should apologize, shouldn’t I?” Casey nodded again.

Swearing under his breath, he grabbed Reese’s keys from the coffee table and headed outside to apologize to Lucy.

* * *

MIA WASN’T PICKING UP her phone. Probably because she and Jack were having wild monkey sex while Lucy stood here getting barked at by a man she’d almost had sex with just a few short hours ago.

She snapped shut her cell phone and looked up at the sky wishing there was some kind of prayer for teleportation. Mom hadn’t shared that one with her.

“Lucy?”

She spun at the sound of Jeremiah’s voice. He stepped down the steps to the asphalt and she opened her phone and quickly pressed Redial.

“Look, Jeremiah, I get it, things are tough for you, but frankly, my life is no picnic right now. So, why don’t you just go deal with your mess and I’ll deal with mine?”

He ignored her, stopping a foot from her. “I’m sorry, Lucy.”

Mia’s voice mail came on and she snapped the phone shut.

“Your sister’s not around?”

“No.”

His smile was a variation on his million-dollar grin, more devastating because it was tarnished at the corners. “I can take you home.”

Past caring about his feelings, she looked him right in the eye and didn’t bother mincing words. “I think you have bigger problems to deal with.”

She watched him bristle, his blue eyes dark.

“Where’s Ben?” she asked.

“Probably in the barn.”

“He do that a lot? Run away?”

“Enough that I know he’s in the barn.”

“Are you—?”

“I’m giving him and me a chance to cool down,” he interrupted. “I appreciate your concern, but I’ve been doing this for a year, Lucy. You met these boys five minutes ago.” He held up Reese’s keys. “Take Reese’s car. He’ll come and get it when he gets off the couch.”

There was more she wanted to say. Plenty more. But what was the point, really? She grabbed the keys. “Thanks.”

“See you.”

“Yeah,” she snapped, remembering the way the touch of his hands turned her inside out, the way he kissed her like she was the best thing he’d tasted in years. She felt duped by that man in the moonlight last night. “See you.”