Breakfast was bagels (for the adults) and cereal (for the kids) because it wasn’t like Aiden had prepared for guests.
“I’m hungry,” Emmett told me, tossing a pine cone into the air and catching it. Logan and Paige would be there any minute.
“I told you you should’ve had a bagel.”
Tongue trapped between his teeth, he tossed the pine cone higher and darted to the side to catch it, but his hand-eye coordination was off, so it bounced off my head.
“Sorry,” he said with a grimace.
I brushed flecks of the pine cone off my hair, slicked back in a braid going down my back. “Hey, what’s one more head injury.”
Anya flew out of the front door and scrambled on my lap, where I sat on a white Adirondack chair that overlooked the front yard. She studied my face, her mouth twisting up in a thoughtful grimace when she looked at the bandage at my hairline.
“Does it hurt?” she asked.
“Not too bad.” I gently touched the bottom of the butterfly bandage. “Itches a little, but I need to leave it on here for a few days.”
Her eyes, bright blue, and an entirely different size and shade as her father’s, met mine. Her mother’s eyes. My eyes came from my mother too, and I couldn’t help but think about how differently I might’ve felt if I liked seeing that reminder of her in the mirror. Anya would. And Aiden, every time he looked at his daughter, would see glimpses of the woman they lost.
Gently, I brushed her hair behind her ears.
“You don’t laugh a lot, do you?” she asked.
Her father had asked me something similar, and I struggled not to feel like I’d done something wrong by the repeated question.
I tapped her chin with my thumb, and it drew a smile. “I laugh more once you get to know me,” I told her.
My answer made her happy, and my heart struggled to work past the sweet melancholy ache she brought out in me. If I was already falling in love with her dad, then Anya might have beaten him to the finish line.
I loved her serious questions. I loved her daredevil streak, even if my wrist throbbed in protest. I loved that she laid in the middle of a boxing ring singing at the top of her lungs.
“I went to sleep right away last night,” she told me in a serious tone.
“That’s … good.” My brow furrowed because it certainly seemed like she was telling me something important. “Is it usually hard for you to get to sleep?”
She shrugged. “Sometimes.”
Her eyes moved from my face down to the letters on my Wolves T-shirt. The worn black fabric wasn’t something I would’ve packed had I known anyone outside of Emmett would be privileged to see me in all my morning glory. There were holes in the hem. I’d ripped the arms off years earlier because I hated sleeves on my shirts when I worked out.
“What keeps you up, sweetheart?” I asked. As I watched her, it was impossible not to think about the nights I’d stared at the ceiling of my bedroom when I was younger.
“I don’t know. ” Her answer was honest and simply spoken, but still … it wedged something raw and vulnerable into my heart. “But I liked that Emmett was across the hall. I pretended he was my big brother.” Her eyes met mine again. “And you were downstairs. Daddy wasn’t alone either. I think it was easier to sleep because I was happy.”
It was almost impossible to swallow past whatever was lodged in my throat. I thought of what Aiden said the night before, about confusing her.
“Your daddy was very nice to let us stay because I was hurt,” I said gently.
Anya nodded. I found myself studying her more closely than I ever had.
I’d probably seen pictures of Aiden’s wife in the past, but if I had, there was no recollection of her face. Nor had I searched the house for her picture the night before, but I had no doubt there were images of her around the space where they lived.
Behind me, I felt him approach, his presence something akin to its own force field. Since I closed the door to take my bath, he hadn’t spoken a word to me.
He simply watched, studied me with a wariness that I hadn’t seen in him before, like I did him harm in some way that I didn’t understand.
Didn’t he know? I didn’t want to do any unseen damage. I’d love them so easily if he’d let me.
“Will you bring Emmett to play again sometime?” Anya asked, now fiddling with the edge of my braid. “You didn’t get to walk to the lake with us and see me skip rocks. I’m really good at it.”
Aiden came to stand next to the chair, and carefully, I glanced up, but his attention was on his daughter.
“We’ll talk about it later, okay, gingersnap?” he said.
She pouted. “You only say that when you don’t want to say no in front of people.”
I smothered a smile. “I’ll tell you what, Anya, maybe your dad can drop you off at Emmett’s house someday when I’m there.” I tapped her on the nose. “No climbing that tree, though.”
“Can I, daddysnap?” she asked, bouncing excitedly on my lap.
Aiden gave a slight nod. “Why don’t you hop off her lap? I think her brother is here.”
Logan’s SUV pulled into the driveway, and I caught sight of their identical worried expressions.
“Here we go,” I murmured.
“Mom looks pissed,” Emmett whispered.
I gave him a look when Aiden sighed.
Emmett glanced up at Aiden, voice serious. “I don’t know if you’re ready for this, Mr. Hennessy.”
Aiden’s eyebrows lowered. “For what?”
Paige threw open her door, and in a flurry of red hair and long legs and motherly affection, she filled the entire front yard with her presence.
Her hands ran over my hair, my shoulders, and then tilted my chin to the side. “Oh my gosh, Isabel, we are going straight to the hospital. What is the matter with you?”
I stood, and when I grimaced at a twinge in my leg, she set her hands on her hips and glared at me.
“You told me her head was fine,” she said to Aiden. Paige pointed at the bandage on my head. “You call that fine?”
His eyes were huge, and he glanced at me for help. “I—“
I shrugged because I’d had more than a decade to get used to her.
Logan approached at a normal speed, and with normal people skills, he held his hand out to Aiden. “Logan. Nice to meet you.”
Aiden shook it, still casting wary looks at Paige as she clucked and cooed over my wrist, which was rewrapped in clean bandages after my bath. “Nice to meet you too.”
“Paige,” Logan said evenly.
She didn’t so much as look at him. “Not the time to rein me in, buddy.” Her eyes were pinned to me. “You’re sure this isn’t broken?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Trust me, if the pain or swelling was worse today, I’d let you take me. But I’m fine.”
“Forgive me if I don’t trust your opinion on that, Miss
I refused to get checked out at the hospital.”
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.