Kylee closed the children’s bedroom door for the fifth time only to hear muffled giggling again. “I heard that,” she called. “Go to sleep! You just lost another five minutes of TV time tomorrow.”
There was a groan, and Annabelle shouted, “You’re mean! I want to go to Ava’s house!”
Kylee smiled to herself, despite the overwhelming frustration and having no idea who Ava was. She’d never babysat as a teenager because she could make real money waiting tables, and her lack of experience with kids showed. She swept several toy cars off the couch beside the small electric fireplace and collapsed.
The house smelled like burned cafeteria food. The kitchen table was covered with untouched plates of mushy noodles and stinky tuna, and the living room was a mess even though it had been pristine when she arrived. The invisible boulder she’d carried in her chest since her sister’s car accident felt as heavy as a school bus.
Managing a staff of digital project managers is easier, she thought with a beleaguered sigh. And she had no cook or housekeeper here.
Mia had made the challenges of parenthood sound charming, but there’d been nothing fun about the past four hours. The twins didn’t listen. They didn’t follow directions. And they did nothing in a hurry unless it was something she told them not to do.
But the moment she heard of her sister’s death, something had ripped deep in her core, accompanied by an explosion of guilt. She’d always meant to make up for not being there more for Mia. But impressing her parents—and Lagrasse—with a big-city career had taken precedence, and Mia had seemed happy without her. When Mom told her about the will and that Mia and Chip had requested Kylee raise the twins, she hadn’t hesitated to agree. But it’d taken her some time to wrap her mind around it.
How could she handle two young children who didn’t come with instructions? They were terrific in small doses, but the thought of managing anyone younger than an intern full-time was terrifying. She’d had a pet goldfish once. It only lived three days.
A weird cartoon shrieked from the television. Kylee knew Henry and Annabelle weren’t supposed to watch more than two hours a day, but that was going to change. Besides, there was so much educational programming on television these days, it didn’t matter. She’d read up on it. Cooking, however, she had not. That’d been evident when Henry whined for chicken noodle soup, then began asking where Nanna went and if Evan could come back. The tuna casserole was a disaster just as the man had implied it would be.
It would have been nice if her mother had informed her how much he’d been helping out since the funeral. When Kylee had confronted her, Mom had shrugged it off and said she hadn’t wanted to bother her.
Kylee blew out a breath of frustration. Just thinking about Chip and Mia’s friend made her nerves crackle. True, he was helping out during a horrible transition, but he was acting like he knew what was best, and it bugged her. He had the twins wrapped around his finger, and Mom acted like he’d hung the moon. He was apparently everyone’s favorite now, just like Mia had been. It didn’t seem to matter that Kylee had taken two months of leave from work before Christmas to pack up her sister’s home and start raising her preschoolers.
The pity party skidded to a sudden stop. With a slow burn of embarrassment at her pride, Kylee remembered how Evan had read to the kids when he could have left. He’d offered to cook dinner, too. Really, he was doing the honorable thing stepping in with Mia and Chip gone, and he was gutsy for choosing to save lives as a paramedic. But although his solid, stocky physique suggested he could bench-press the school bus sitting on her chest, he was neither a Spokes nor a Maxwell.
She stared at the television, wondering what he thought about her. She was single, childless and close to forty with nothing to show for it except a hefty bank account and an enormous 401(k).
Most people in Lagrasse had probably written Kylee off because she’d chosen a high-powered career with a social media management company in the greatest city on earth, but she hadn’t forgotten where she came from. She’d sacrificed a great deal so she could be successful—and stand out just as much as beautiful, popular Mia. Now they wanted her—needed her. Kylee had simply assumed she would have more time to resolve things with her sister, but she’d been wrong. Raising the twins was the only way to make things right, even if she had to give up the next fourteen years of her life to do so.
After a rather dull weekend off, Evan’s night shift at the Lagrasse firehouse on the corner of Pine and Main began at 8:00 p.m. on Monday, and he found himself running short on time after staying too long at Murphy’s Bookstore perusing new releases. He hurried back to his garage studio apartment to change, feeling out of sorts after not seeing the twins all weekend. Kylee hadn’t even brought them to the Good Shepherd Church outside of Lagrasse where her mother attended and he’d joined since moving into town.
His landlords, the Lightfoots, were good Christian people who owned a majestic turn-of-the-century brick home with several windows that reflected the tree-lined street and sidewalks. Behind it, the separate garage was clean with whitewashed Hardie Plank and narrow stairs that led up to a second-story living space. They creaked under Evan’s weight as he jogged up to the door, his mind distracted over the sudden changes at Chip and Mia’s cottage.
Peppy, the Lightfoots’ long-haired black-and-white cat, greeted him on the porch. He reached down and stroked her head as she rubbed against his shins then trotted down the stairs.
Evan pushed the door open and looked around for his uniform before remembering he’d left it in the dryer. After restarting the stacked laundry unit to fluff his crumpled clothes, he picked through the freezer for something to eat. There were two frozen dinners that wouldn’t take long to cook, although the portions would only satisfy a snail. Dinner with the twins would have been more enjoyable.
Evan’s stomach rumbled as he plopped down at his small dinette. He reached for his schedule to remind himself what he had going on the rest of the week besides midnight shifts Monday through Friday. As the microwave hummed, a small pebble of anxiety formed in his stomach. Except for sleeping, he had little to do on his days off besides visiting his mother thirty minutes away in the most rural part of the county. Most of his time the past few years had been spent at the bowling alley or at Chip’s house. Since the accident, he’d quit the bowling league and found excuses not to go out with his friends from work or hang out with his family. He would have avoided church if it weren’t for the twins because everyone who looked at him saw a man who’d witnessed the accident of one of the most beloved couples in town, and they knew he’d let them die.
The microwave beeped, and Evan exhaled to loosen the tightness in his chest. Without the twins to care for, he’d have a lot more free time, but what would he do with it? He wasn’t sure. He wasn’t ready to give them up, especially to Kylee with her designer sunglasses and citrus perfume. She made a pretty picture and smelled nice, but the second she started speaking he wanted to tell her to chill out. He already had a boss, and the chief worked at the firehouse.
Snorting, Evan shoveled the processed food into his mouth while ruminating over what to do about Henry and Annabelle. He couldn’t give them over to a woman who didn’t know how to boil noodles and had horrible taste in toys. Those troll dolls were sure to give the twins nightmares.
Checking the time, Evan realized he was going to be late again and dashed to grab his clothes from the dryer. He grabbed his keys, the new hardback book from Murphy’s and the medical kit, then dashed out to the SUV he’d driven since high school. The gears ground as he zipped down the driveway, giving Mrs. Lightfoot a wave when she straightened from over her mums. The West Indian woman was a watercolor artist with a remarkable green thumb for perennials. She waved back with an arched brow, and he slowed as he turned out onto the street.
Work required him to be focused and clearheaded. He couldn’t let another patient down; he’d walked through that dark valley already. He ignored the tasteless frozen dinner heaving in his stomach, but he couldn’t erase Kylee Spokes from his brain no matter how hard he tried. She was the reason for his distracting day—another judge, another witness to his failure to save Chip and Mia—and she was taking the kids.
Evan took a deep breath and exhaled to release the stress raising his blood pressure. He wasn’t going anywhere. No matter who Kylee was, he was staying in Henry and Annabelle’s lives, and when she gave up and ran back to New York alone, all the better.
Evan turned into the drive of the brown brick firehouse and parked his truck around back. When he let himself in through the kitchen door, he inhaled the familiar pizza and diesel smells and relaxed. His partner, EMT Chase Anderson, and Captain James Noble were seated at a long, solidly built table waving sub sandwiches in the air while they talked with their mouths full. Shawna Lopez, another firefighter he enjoyed working with, was on her phone in the corner. Evan gave them all a nod and headed for the locker room to store his things.
“Hey, Hollister!” squawked Chase.
Evan strolled back out and took a seat at the table across from the gangly younger man.
“Did you hear about the Boggses last night?” Chase shook his head in disbelief, and there was amusement in his tone. “We got a call after nine in the evening.”
Older and more serious, James grunted as he chewed his sandwich. “What happened?” Evan asked.
“Mr. Boggs stumbled and took a seat on the rug in the bathroom, then his wife almost fell into the bathtub trying to help him up.”
Evan felt his eyes round with concern over the retired senior couple. “Are they okay?”
“Just a little bruised and sore.” Chase waved him off, indifferent. “You should have heard them arguing like teenagers when we got there, though.” He grinned.
“Last time we were there, I suggested they get some live-in help,” Evan reminded them. “It could have been worse.”
“We sent them both to the emergency room, and they checked out okay,” said James. “Mr. Boggs was lucky he didn’t break his hip. He was hurting pretty bad.”
“Poor guy,” sympathized Evan. “He’s convinced he can still get around like when he was mayor.”
Chase arched a blond eyebrow. “He was bellowing like an old heifer.”
“You would, too, if you smacked your bones hard enough on an old tile floor,” James scolded. “He’s a good man. He was a great mayor.”
“I’m glad he’s okay,” said Evan.
“He’ll be fine,” James mumbled. He reached for his sandwich but stopped before taking another bite. “How are the kids?”
“Funny you should ask.” Evan leaned back, frustration bubbling to the surface now that he had ears to listen to him complain.
“Are they okay?” the captain asked in concern. He’d lost one of his own children who’d driven under the influence.
Evan let the front legs of the chair clap back down on the floor and leaned forward on his elbows.
“Their aunt arrived on Friday, the one from New York? She turned everything upside down, so I stayed there until their grandmother got there.”
“That’s the big sister, right?” interrupted Chase. Evan nodded. “Is she as gorgeous as Mia was?”
Evan frowned at the question. He’d never thought of Mia as more than a good friend, and Chase was far too young to have known her in school. “If you mean attractive, yes.”
“I remember her,” said James. “Brunette, right? Tall? Not as fair?”
“Right, Kylee, with the beautiful brown eyes.” Evan stopped short, surprised at himself. Why did he use beautiful and Kylee in the same sentence?
Chase gave a low, appreciative whistle.
Evan glared at him. “I wouldn’t try that around her,” he warned. “Kylee Spokes could pin you to the ground with the tip of her high-heeled shoe.”
James choked out a blustering laugh, then wiped his mouth with a napkin. “She’s high up in some New York company, isn’t she?”
“I don’t know the details, but I think it’s Digital Rock, the social media company,” said Evan.
“Wow, impressive,” inserted Chase. “Especially for being from Lagrasse.”
“Yes, she graduated from Lagrasse High School five years ahead of Mia, who was a year behind me.”
“Did Chip know her?” asked James.
“I don’t think they were close.” Evan raised a tight shoulder. He knew they weren’t.
“How’d she end up with the kids?” Chase wondered.
“Beats me,” said Evan with a twinge of resentment. “Their grandmother has health issues, but I live here, and Lagrasse is all they know.”
“She’s family,” said James, crumpling his wrapper. “I can see why Mia wanted it that way.”
Evan clasped his hands tighter on the table. True, he wasn’t related, but he was present and dependable. Also, he wasn’t ashamed of his hometown and didn’t need to dress like a Wall Street big shot to impress other people. “The twins know me,” he insisted. “It’s been three months, and we have our routine, and she’s changing things around before she even takes them away.”
“Kids are resilient,” James assured him. “They’ll be okay.”
“I’m not sure she knows how to care for a child—or anyone else for that matter,” Evan said. “She didn’t know her mother’s fibromyalgia had gotten worse—or she doesn’t care.”
“Maybe no one told her,” suggested Chase. “She’s probably busy with her career.” His eyes glowed with admiration.
“Too busy to know what’s going on with her family?” Evan growled. “I’ve never heard of her hanging around long for the holidays, either.” He felt himself scowl. “I’m just going to keep an eye on things,” he added in a determined tone. “Chip and Mia would want me to.”
The two men across the table fell quiet, and Evan knew they were thinking of how he hadn’t done enough for his friends at the accident scene, but he wouldn’t let the twins down. He scooted back from the table with his book.
“I’m sure you’ll do the best you can,” called James. “It’s good she’s here now with the lieutenant’s position opening up. You should apply.”
“I don’t know if I have time with the kids.”
“They’re going to be leaving at Christmas anyway, right? Maybe you can run by in the mornings just to see how she’s doing. Let her know you’re here to help until then.”
Evan headed for the day room, leaving the unease behind him. He’d worked hard to make it to lieutenant, and it was so close. But then the accident happened. Could he work more hours and still be there for the twins? Was he even worthy? Kylee didn’t make him feel that way. His friends couldn’t possibly understand what he was talking about without meeting the intimidating woman. To make matters worse, Martin had left a voicemail telling him there was little to be done if the aunt had accepted custody. He’d have to prove her unfit.
The station alarm screeched, vibrating the walls of the firehouse. Evan dashed for the locker room. His feet felt like wings. Someone needed him. There was a life to save. For a few hours, he didn’t have to worry about Kylee or the twins.
Tuesday morning, the world came into focus, and Kylee realized something was very wrong. Sprawled on the fold-out couch in Mia’s tiny office, she looked up to see Annabelle grinning back at her. The four-year-old twin was straddling Kylee like a horse and had her arms pinned down at her sides as if she could actually hold her aunt down. She giggled.
“Annabelle, get off me.”
“I’m hunwry.”
Kylee raised her head a few inches. “Hun-gry. Now let me up. Please.” She fumbled for her phone, pulled up the Reminders app and typed in Speech Therapist. Her eyes widened when she noticed the time, then Annabelle began to bounce up and down on her stomach. “Oof!”
The little girl laughed louder.
“Annabelle, let Aunt Kylee up, and she will find you a croissant.”
“What’s that?” the child asked as she slid off. Flopping over onto the mattress, she began to make snow angels in the sheets, pulling the bottom one off.
“No, don’t do that.” Kylee sighed, but Annabelle rolled herself up like a mummy. “What are you doing awake?” Kylee grumbled as she crawled off the bed. “Don’t kids sleep until noon these days?”
Annabelle began to sing as Kylee stomped to the bathroom. She usually never slept past six in the morning, but it was nine now. She still had jet lag, she decided, even though she had not changed time zones. Skipping church at the start of the week hadn’t helped, although she’d had no intention of going with Mom anyway. The Good Shepherd congregation had a general sermon for everyone, then broke into separate Sunday School classes. It’d been a while since she’d gone at all so instead, she’d chased the kids all over and caught up on emails.
Kylee shut the door to the green-tiled bathroom, scowled at her messy hair and turned on the water to wash her face. She had raccoon eyes from her mascara proving she hadn’t washed up well the night before. The door beside her thumped. “What?” she protested, splashing water on her face.
“I need to come in,” said a tiny voice.
She sighed. “Just a minute, Henry.”
“I need to come in now.”
Now in four-year-old speak probably meant she was borderline too late. Kylee exhaled in surrender and pulled open the door to let the boy inside.
He gave her a stare, and she stepped out, smoothing down her hair with her hands. A loud bang in the kitchen made her pivot from the office instead of changing her clothes. She found a cooking pot rolling in circles on the floor.
Annabelle looked up at her wide-eyed. “I dropped it!”
“What are you doing?”
“Making grits.”
“You know how to make grits?” Kylee shook her head in disbelief. “I’m thirty-eight, and I can’t make them.”
The dark blond child stared at her with innocent blue eyes, and Kylee picked up the pot and set it on the counter. “Go brush your teeth or something.”
“I didn’t eat anything.”
“Well, go clean them first because I said so,” said Kylee. There. That felt better.
Annabelle looked up in confusion. “I want grits.”
“Sure, fine. We’ll have something. What about cereal?” Kylee walked to the pantry realizing she should have taken inventory the night before, because they’d used up all the granola cereal during the weekend. And fast food had filled in the cracks. Now it was Monday. Major fail.
“We like grits and eggs,” Henry informed her from the doorway. His hair was matted on one side, indicating he hadn’t bothered to brush it during his takeover of the single bathroom.
Kylee swung open the pantry door and examined the narrow shelves. They were tidy enough but not in any kind of logical order. They were also full of...ingredients. She blinked in surprise. There wasn’t any more cereal besides grits and a canister of oatmeal. Half a loaf of bread could provide toast, and there were three bags of different types of dried fruit, but there wasn’t anything quick. Everything had to be mixed together and cooked in one way or another. She groaned in agony. “Don’t you eat Cocoa Balls or anything?”
“What are those?” asked Henry from behind her. He seemed profoundly interested in the idea of something chocolate.
“I want grits,” reiterated Annabelle. “Ava likes grits, too.”
Kylee stared into the pantry again, hoping something would appear but nothing happened inside the cave of wonders. “Who has the time, and who’s Ava?” she muttered.
“What’s wrong with your hair?” queried Henry.
“Grits!” shouted Annabelle. She reached up onto the counter and lugged the pot back down and held it against her belly.
Kylee closed the pantry door in alarm. “I don’t know how to make grits,” she reminded her, then decided it wasn’t anything to be ashamed of. “Grits are old-school.” She scowled. “How about a smoothie?”
“Mom makes us smoothies,” Henry admitted with some wistfulness, as if Mia hadn’t been gone since August.
Kylee turned to the freezer. There weren’t any premixed smoothie bags inside. “Do you have protein powder?”
“She uses bananas.”
Used, thought Kylee, suddenly sad along with increasingly desperate. She looked around. There weren’t any bananas on the counter, just two shrunken apples. “I don’t know how to make a smoothie from scratch,” she told Henry. She did not add that her interns usually picked them up when she wanted one from a coffee shop outside her office building. She sighed, realizing she still felt tired and wobbly despite oversleeping.
“I like scrambled eggs.” Henry stared at her, but Kylee did not look back. She didn’t know how to scramble eggs. Not without burning them.
“We’ll go to Casey’s Diner,” she decided, remembering the restaurant where she hung out in high school. She was a guardian, not a personal chef. The children could have pancakes at the old diner that looked like a train car. They’d love it. It’d been sitting on the edge of town ever since she could remember.
“Pancakes!” Annabelle approved. She dropped the pot on the floor with a clatter and dashed down the hall.
“Do something with your hair!” Kylee called out. She turned to find Henry studying her. “What?”
“You have black eyes,” he observed.
Kylee remembered the face that had looked back at her from the bathroom mirror. She groaned. It’d take an hour to make herself presentable, and it was almost ten o’clock. She couldn’t go out in public. She was setting a bad example letting the twins see her like this. Resolved to set an alarm the next morning, she picked up the pot and set it back on the counter, hoping the four-year-olds could survive another hour without breakfast.
Suddenly the doorbell rang, and Henry raced to answer it before she could catch him. The sound of the faucet in the bathroom meant Annabelle was getting washed up, but the little girl yelped.
Kylee dashed down the hall. “Are you all right?”
Annabelle grinned at her from over the sink as she teetered on her step stool. “Yes.” The faucet was on all the way and flowing fast.
The doorbell rang again. “Just a minute!” Flustered, Kylee ran for the door. At least Mom could cook. She’d know how to make grits and how to get the tangles out of Annabelle’s hair. Henry was on his tiptoes trying to turn the dead bolt when Kylee reached the door. She flipped the lock and pulled it open.
“Evan!” Henry cried.
Kylee cringed. During their nightly phone call yesterday, Mom had promised to come by, and Evan was not supposed to worry about them anymore. Kylee pulled her shoulders back while Evan looked at her as if they hadn’t just met a few days ago.
“Good morning...” he offered. It sounded like a question. He was wearing slacks and a dark blue shirt with badges from the local firehouse, and his short, neat hair was combed off to the side. He studied her with gray eyes that reminded her of forest mists.
“Aunt Kylee can’t make eggs,” Henry tattled.
Annabelle appeared dripping wet from her chin down to the middle of her pajama shirt. “I want grits!” she bellowed.
“Ah...” Kylee planted a hand on her hip. “I can make eggs,” she said defiantly. I just burn them.
Evan nodded suspiciously like he was doing a welfare check. “Is everything okay here?”
“Of course. It’s fine. I told you that you didn’t have to worry about coming over.” Kylee gave him a confident look. She had everything under control. Didn’t she? It’d been four days, but it still felt new.
He looked past her. “Is that water running?”
“The sink is stuck,” said Annabelle.
Kylee managed to keep her expression neutral. If she’d woken up earlier, she would have had the children dressed and fed. There was still candy in her purse...
“Oh, Annabelle.” Evan sighed. He brushed past Kylee uninvited and charged down the hall.
She watched him go in irritation until his feet splashed into a puddle at the door to the bathroom. “Annabelle!” Kylee cried. By the time she caught up, Evan was inside twirling the faucet handles on the sink until they turned off. He reached for a stack of towels on the wall shelf.
“Here.” He tossed one to Kylee, who found her bare feet in a pool of water on the tile floor. “She spins them all the way on and then gets confused how to turn them off.”
“And plugs the sink?”
“She likes to watch it fill up. It makes a good swimming pool for her dolls.”
“Great.” Kylee plastered a smile on her face. “I guess I should have been watching closer.” She squatted down and began wiping up the water on the floor. “I was in the kitchen making breakfast.”
“Were you?”
“About to. Then we decided to go get pancakes at the old railroad diner.”
“Um, that closed like three years ago.”
Kylee grit her teeth to keep from moaning. “I didn’t know that. I don’t live here like you.”
“Actually, I rent an apartment. My mother lives in my grandparents’ farmhouse in the country.”
“Oh. Has your father passed?”
“He’s in Alaska. Haven’t seen him since I was four,” Evan said.
“That’s... I’m sorry.” Kylee breathed out as Henry appeared at the door. So Evan was used to being the man of the house.
“Evan, can you make us grits?” Henry pleaded.
“Sure, buddy.”
“You don’t have to do that,” insisted Kylee.
“I don’t mind.” Evan crouched beside her and helped her blot the floor dry. He smelled faintly of soap and...pizza?
Her stomach grumbled. She winced in embarrassment. “You don’t have any croissants on you, do you?”
“No. You’d have to go to The Last Re-Torte Bakery on Loger Street to find those.” He straightened and hung the wet towel over the shower curtain rod. “But I do make grits, so let me get that started.” He glanced at her and, before she could refuse again, said, “Why don’t you clean up? I’ll watch the twins.”
Kylee looked down at herself. The bottoms of her silk pajama pants were wet. Her shirt was wrinkled from tossing and turning, and she’d lost a button somewhere. Quickly, she shut the bathroom door behind him.
If she were her own boss, she’d fire herself. Of course, no one else would have known she’d overslept if Evan hadn’t come by. She hoped he didn’t tell her mother. Kylee put her hands on the edges of the sink and watched the last of the water spiral down the drain. When she looked up into the mirror with a grumpy frown, it melted into a horrified stare. She’d forgotten about the state of her hair and the black smudges under her eyes.
Just great.