Chapter Thirty-seven
“Hey, sleepyhead,” said Kerry. “Time to get up.”
Alex opened one eye and reached for her, sitting on the edge of the bed, but she curved her body out of reach in the nick of time.
He propped himself up on an elbow and sniffed the air. “Is that bacon?”
“And coffee.” She stood looking down at him with her hands on her hips. “Good coffee, not like the stuff at the NPD. Come on, before the kids eat it all.”
“Mmn.” He lay back down. “It’s so warm and comfy under the covers here. You really should crawl in and see.”
She sat back down and caressed his head. “I’d rather we were both downstairs before Shay gets up. She and I need to have a private girl talk. She’s at the age where she’s bound to have questions about you and me sleeping in the same bed.”
“A little late now, isn’t it?” he asked through a yawn, tracing a line from her shoulder to her elbow.
“I should have gotten it out of the way before, but everything happened so fast . . .”
“The idea of sharing a home is going to take some getting used to for all of us.” He pulled her onto the bed and under the covers and began kissing her neck.
She lifted her chin to give him better access. “When I woke up this morning, I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to have this kind, caring, sexy man lying next to me.”
“You say that now,” he said, slipping his hand inside her oversize button-down and cupping her breast. “But what happens if I take too long a shower and we run out of hot water, or I get called out on a case at two in the morning and wake you up?
“Or if you leave the cap off the toothpaste?”
He scooted lower in the bed. “I would never do that. But we should probably have a conversation about our wine budget,” he said, suckling her.
“Noted,” she murmured, rolling away from him. “Now, I’ve got to get back downstairs.”
Reluctantly, he let her slip away. “Remember where we were.”
She kissed the tip of his nose. “Oh, I will.” She shot him a saucy smile, and he would have sworn the exaggerated sway of her hips as she left the room was deliberate.
* * *
Around the dining room table sat the girls in their PJ’s and he and the boys in their rumpled clothes from the previous day, while Hobo wagged from chair to chair, begging for handouts.
“It stopped raining. Let’s go outside after breakfast,” said Chloé around a mouthful of toaster waffle.
“Sorry. I’m gonna have to put the kibosh on that,” said Alex. He looked at the boys. “You guys smell like onions and old socks. Time to go back to my place to shower. Then we’re going shopping for new school clothes. Can’t have you going back to school in ankle pants.”
“Whaths ankle panths?” asked Travis.
“It’s when your pants are too short and you can see your ankles,” said Ty.
Travis folded his arms and frowned in protest. “I don’t want to go thopping. I want to thtay here.”
“Please?” begged Tyler. “Shay said she’d show us her secret place by the creek.”
Shay frowned. “You weren’t supposed to tell!”
“Sorry.”
“You’ll have plenty of time to play down at the creek once you’ve moved in,” said Kerry, sitting down to eat with them. “Only two more weeks.”
Tyler slipped a piece of bacon under the table, and Hobo inhaled it without chewing.
“Hey! I just thought of something else!” exclaimed Tyler. “We’re going to have a dog!”
“Don’t you want a new cell phone for school, Ty?” asked Alex.
“Yeah!”
“I still can’t believe the school actually requires them,” Alex muttered to Kerry.
“Get ready. There’re a few more things that have changed since you were in school.”
“Do the kids still carry milk money? I have a big jar I throw my change into every night.”
Kerry shook her head. “I pay for the kids’ lunches the same way I buy everything else—online.”
“Looks like I’ve got as much to learn as these knuckleheads,” he said, snatching Tyler and giving him a noogie. His hair had grown back in, and he had lost that gaunt look.
“Aaaah! Cut it out!” Tyler laughed, his voice cracking, beating Alex with impotent fists.
“Oof!” cried Alex, doubling over, pretending to be hurt.
“I’ll be your teacher,” Kerry said to Alex with a wink.
She looked so damn approachable in her yoga pants, with no makeup on.
“Tell you what,” Alex said to the boys. “If it’s okay with Kerry, you guys can go out and play for a half hour. But when I say it’s time to go, no arguments.”
In a flash, the boys and Chloé were out of their seats and headed for the back door.
“Please carry your dishes to the sink first,” said Kerry.
“Wait for me,” said Shay, drinking the leftover milk from her bowl of cereal.
While the others were running down the porch steps, Alex took Kerry into his arms.
Shay turned around after rinsing her bowl and gazed steadily at her mother in Alex’s arms as she made her way to the back door.
“She’s going to be the tricky one,” said Kerry when she was gone.
“What are you going to tell her?”
“That’s what I’m most worried about. In Shay’s experience, the guy always lets us down. I’ll tell her that just because two men have disappointed us, that doesn’t mean you will.”
Alex pulled her close.
A moment later, she pulled back, draped her arms over his shoulders, and looked up into his eyes. “I’ll tell her that, unlike the others, we can depend on you. And that we love each other and we’re ready to live as a family.”
“What about your mom and dad? I keep thinking I need to ask for your hand or something.”
Kerry laughed. “My father can be a little intimidating. It’s not like we’re getting married, though. And even if we were, I decide what’s best for me and my girls.”
“I’m not sure which would be harder, asking him to marry you or telling him I’m about to shack up with his only daughter—in his house. My manhood is shrinking just thinking about it.”
“I pay rent here.”
“It goes without saying that I’ll step up to the plate. I’m not talking about the practical end of it, though. Judge O’Hearn has made it very clear how he feels about cops.”
“Oh, no.” She winced. “Sorry. Let me handle him.”
“No. Tell them what’s going on if you want, but before we make this official, I need to speak to him myself—both of your parents—in person.”
* * *
Later that afternoon, the shopping bags containing new backpacks and underwear and sneakers slung carelessly on the boys’ beds, Alex took his laptop out back while the boys played in the yard.
“How come no bluebirds have moved into the nice, safe boxes we built them yet?” asked Tyler.
“It’s too soon,” Alex replied, only half paying attention. Then it occurred to him. “Did you think they would move right in as soon as they saw it?”
“That’s what I’d do if I was a bird.”
“It takes wild animals a while to learn to trust. Maybe we’ll take the boxes with us when we move, if they’re still unclaimed.”
That cheered him. “Okay.”
He watched Tyler pitch a ball to Travis, who had his tongue out in concentration as he shouldered his bat.
Livvie had warned him not to get his hopes up. But he couldn’t help it. From the first nourishing meal he’d bought them, he’d gotten hooked on the high of being a father . . . giving of himself to vulnerable, defenseless beings with no thought to the cost.
About a week earlier, Livvie had confided that Greg and Deborah Pelletier had made the mistake of skipping one of their court-mandated counseling sessions. Perhaps, in their supreme arrogance, they thought they were above taking orders. Or maybe, when the judge told them how vital it was to follow their plan to the letter of the law, they weren’t paying attention. Whatever the reason, every misstep would count against them at the next custody hearing. And each count against them was a count in Alex’s favor. He knew he shouldn’t, but he could already taste the possibility of adoption.
Then there was complicated, exasperating, provocative Kerry. He used to have to dredge up fading memories to see her navy-blue eyes in his daydreams. Now he gazed into them whenever he wanted. Even better, he got to touch her. He would never take that for granted. What lucky star had guided them together after all those years?
Kerry and her two impossibly precious—that is, when they weren’t annoying the hell out of him—angels. When he wasn’t looking, Chloé and Ella had charmed and cajoled their way into his heart.
And then there was Shay, a former solitary like Alex, who was blossoming before his eyes into a self-assured young lady. She was going to be every bit as fiery as her mama, and he adored her beyond all reason. He couldn’t imagine his life without any of them.
The boys came running over, pink-faced and sweaty. “Will you play with us?”
Alex regarded the boys, then his screen, then the boys again. And then he closed his laptop with a click. “Okay.” He rose from his seat with a muffled groan. “Who batted last?”