by Leslie North
Kenton kept himself occupied in his home office for several hours sorting through personal emails that had stacked up, taking care of the few things that came by regular mail, and, frankly, worrying about a child-trafficking ringleader who was on the loose somewhere in the world.
He clicked the pen in his hand as he once again reviewed his last mission, looking for the flaw in his plan that had allowed the man to slip through the net they’d cast for him. Kenton still couldn’t find the error, so he turned his attention to preparing for his future. The house was almost perfect, but he had a few home improvement projects yet to be done before he’d be ready for phase two: finding someone to share it with.
That was a tougher puzzle, but he’d solve it as he had most issues in his life—with a solid plan. He wrote down a list of places where he might meet the right sort of woman and researched dating apps with high marriage rates. A surprising number of couples met and wed from those sites. That seemed promising.
Pleased with what he’d accomplished, he opened his office door and winced. The solid oak had prevented the noise from reaching him, but no longer. He headed toward the epicenter of the cacophony: his living room. When he walked through the archway, he stopped cold.
Children’s music was playing, high-pitched voices singing rhyming songs. Eliot was eating some unidentifiable food from the floor in the corner. One of the girls was sitting on the rug, face wet with tears, and the other was red-faced as if angry. Mia stood between them, almost like she was playing referee. What the hell kind of chaos was this?
He was no expert, but it looked like a nap was in order for everyone.
“Maybe you could fill me in on the schedule?” Kenton asked, pitching his voice to be heard when he really wanted to bark orders until everyone was quiet.
“Sure,” Mia said, picking up the teary girl and tickling her tummy. Her action seemed to have minimal effect in terms of soothing the child. “On days that I work, I get up at four. I usually leave about a half hour later, drop the girls at day care, and head to the bakery. Since I’m primarily in the kitchen, my work is done around noon or one—unless we’re really busy and I have to help at the counter. I pick up the girls on my way home, so we’re all home by early afternoon, which gives me plenty of time with them.”
“I meant the girls’ schedules. What time do they eat, nap, that sort of thing?”
“Oh, I don’t do rigid schedules for them,” she responded.
“Seriously?” Kenton’s eyebrows shot up. That didn’t seem right to him. His childhood had been orderly and on a timetable, with his mother the keeper of the clock. He had always felt that it engendered good habits and a sense of responsibility. Hell, he even credited the way he’d been raised for making him a successful soldier.
“At day care, they have a schedule for snack, nap, and playtime,” she explained, “but at home, I use the free-range parenting method.”
An image of free-range chickens came to Kenton’s mind, and that didn’t seem like the best way to raise children. “What does that mean?”
“It’s a system that fosters independence by letting kids be in charge of themselves. Within limits, of course. At this age, it means letting them decide when they’re hungry, for instance. Letting kids make decisions gives them confidence. And it’s proven that free-range kids are happier, play outside more, and have better social skills ultimately.”
Kenton eyed the two toddlers. Neither looked happy or capable of communication. He didn’t want to test the outdoors part. God only knew what would happen if he let them out in the yard.
“I want the girls to follow their own instincts,” Mia continued. “They’ll let me know when they need something.”
“They both seem cranky,” he observed. “Does that mean they’re letting you know they need a nap?”
“Probably,” she said with a rueful smile, “but they have to learn how to go to sleep on their own, how to soothe themselves.”
It took everything in him to not declare what she said ridiculous. Who came up with this stuff? That was a good question, actually. “How do you know about this?”
“From parenting books and articles,” she said. “You can look it up.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” The last thing he wanted to spend time doing was searching parenting forums that compared kids to chickens. Still, he had to admit that he had no idea how to make a kid go to sleep. He remembered his mom declaring that it was naptime, and that was the end of the discussion.
Over the sound of the music, he heard something new: whimpering. He rapidly scanned both kids. No change with either. He focused in on Eliot, who was drooling excessively. The dog’s sides began to heave, and seconds later he puked on the rug in front of the fireplace. What came up gave new meaning to the expression “Technicolor yawn.” Kenton could see undigested rainbow goldfish in the pile.
Mia sucked in a breath. “I’m so sorry. I’ll clean it up right away.” She turned one way and then the other before thrusting the twin she’d been holding into his arms.
Before Kenton could do anything, Mia dashed from the room toward the hall closet, where he kept a carpet shampooer.
The twin he held—Ava, he guessed—was squinching up her face and looked like she was getting ready to explode. He’d had a drill sergeant once who got that same expression just before he cut loose with a torrent of orders and expletives. While he was trying to decide how to manage the pending siege of tears, he felt little hands grip the edge of his athletic shorts.
He looked down. The other twin was pulling herself up using his clothing, threatening to yank his shorts down in the process.
“This is not going to work,” he said to himself.
He raised his eyes and made contact with Mia’s as she returned to the room. She’d heard him. Damn.
4
“How’s it going, sweetie?” Shasta moved past her in the bakery’s kitchen and rapidly put loaves of bread just out of the oven on a tray.
“No worries,” Mia said as she switched on the giant stand mixer to make the final batch of dough for the morning.
Shasta was a squinter. The older woman had a definite way of narrowing her eyes at anything that didn’t quite make sense to her. Mia felt that look directed at her.
“You’ve been a little frantic this morning,” Shasta said in her raspy voice.
With a sigh, Mia came to lean on the counter near Shasta. “Kenton Fitzpatrick came home two days ago, earlier than his mother expected. I’m not sure he’s happy about me living in his house.”
“Too bad. He’s a nice man, though, right? I remember him as a kid who toed the line. His mama wouldn’t raise anything but a gentleman.” Shasta knew Margaret as well.
“He is.” Mia was quick to agree. He’d said at breakfast yesterday that he wouldn’t make her leave, but his declaration later that day that their arrangement wasn’t going to work had left her shaken. He’d been excessively polite the rest of the day, helping her clean up the mess and then distancing himself by going outside to work in the yard. “But I’m in his house.”
The bell on the bakery’s door jingled. “I’ll be back.” Shasta hoisted the tray onto her shoulder and went through the swinging door that connected the kitchen to the counter area.
Mia evaluated the dough in the mixing bowl. It looked a little sticky. Probably the higher humidity that day. She added more flour and waited, eyeing the dough as it spun around. Better. Working in the bakery had given her an of expertise with baking she’d previously lacked. She still enjoyed experimenting, particularly at home, because it relieved stress. Just the day before, she’d made dinner rolls and cookies. Baking relaxed her and added to her repertoire. She’d been pleased with the rolls, but the cookies had only been good, not great.
Not that it mattered. They were eaten regardless. And the whole point had been to take her mind off her situation. After Kenton’s reaction to the chaotic scene he witnessed in his living room, Mia was giving serious consideration to mo
ving out.
Except she hated moving. It involved so much planning. The packing would be minimal, since she and the girls had few possessions at this point, but it would still take her several loads with her small car. And then she’d have to put in a change of address at the post office and go through the hassle of getting utilities turned on in her name. So many details. And the place she’d have to move to was so far from her job and the girls’ day care. Worst of all, it would be uprooting the girls again. The poor babies had had enough disruption in their young lives.
Mia eyeballed the dough again and decided she was satisfied with its consistency. She turned it out onto the counter and began dividing it into individual pieces for loaves. When Margaret had offered her Kenton’s house, it seemed like the hand of fate. She’d always been one to look at such occurrences as fortuitous. From her experience, the things that just happened often led to good. There was that time she fell into conversation with a ski instructor in a diner and ended up working at a resort in Colorado for the winter. It had been lovely. Another chance meeting had led her to the Florida Keys for a stretch as a pastry chef assistant in a major hotel.
She’d kicked around the country after dropping out of college, always considering her sister’s home as a sort of base. After the twins were born, Mia had stuck closer to Caroline, since she wanted to be part of her nieces’ lives, but she hadn’t been stagnant. The wind still blew her around from time to time, and that had been a good thing. Like this bakery job. She’d been walking down the street in the days after Caroline and her husband’s deaths and smelled the comforting scent of bread baking. Mia had pushed the door of the bakery open, thinking she’d get a treat for the twins, when she saw the Help Wanted notice for a summer baker. It had seemed like fate, and she’d applied on the spot.
“I think that’s the last rush of the morning.” Shasta propped the door open and leaned in the doorway so they could talk and she could keep an eye on the front. “I can help you move, sweetie, if that’s what you need to do.”
“I don’t want to.” Mia sighed.
“Everything’s tougher when you have kids to consider.” Shasta had four grown children and several grandchildren. “You might need to think about structuring your life a little more. It really does help.”
“You mean make plans?” Mia asked.
Shasta gave her an easy smile. “It’s not the end of the world to know what’s coming next.”
“Do plans ever really work out, though? I mean, whenever I’ve tried it, something has gone terribly wrong.” Mia thought of her own parents, who had both been planners. Their home had been hyper-organized, including a whiteboard in the kitchen mapping out both a weekly and a daily schedule for everyone in the household. As if knowing where people should be meant they were actually there. It had worked most of the time, Mia remembered, but none of it had mattered when her parents were involved in a multicar accident on the highway. Plans hadn’t saved them, nor had they saved her sister.
She blew out a breath. Two generations of her family both wiped out in accidents. No one had to tell her that life was unpredictable. She’d experienced that herself.
“They don’t always work. Life gives you surprises. Some good, some bad. Take my William, for example.” Shasta’s youngest son had recently graduated from college with a degree in engineering. “He wasn’t planned, and having another baby put a real strain on the family budget.” Shasta smiled again and lowered her voice. “If you tell anyone what I’m about to say, I’ll deny it, but William’s my favorite. In some ways, he’s the best of my kids. I love them all, but there’s something about him. And you’re right, he wasn’t planned, and it worked out great.”
“See. My point exactly,” Mia said. “There’s no assurance of how things will go, ever.” It was as good as fact to her, but it didn’t help her navigate her current situation any better. She was going to have to make a change and give Kenton back his home, because it was really his castle, like the old phrase said. The beautiful home even had a castle-like turret.
Okay, decision made, she thought, as she put the dough into bread pans to rise. She’d stop by the apartment building’s office, which had been unscathed in the fire, and see if she could still get a spot in their other building. The commute was going to make her life more difficult, but it couldn’t be helped. She needed to vacate Kenton’s house.
“Could you take Eliot for a few months?” she asked Shasta, who lived on the outskirts of town and had property enough for a dog to run.
“Of course I can,” Shasta agreed readily. “I’ll take good care of him for you, if that will help.”
“Thanks,” Mia said. She had no intention of making big plans, but she could make little arrangements to keep going.
An hour later, Mia stopped by her apartment complex on the way to the twins’ day care center. After talking to the leasing agent, she felt a little better. The renovations were going well, and her original apartment would be ready for her to move back into in a month. That wasn’t so bad. In the meantime, they had a unit for her in the neighboring town. She could do one month of a longer commute, and Eliot would be happy with Shasta, she hoped.
Things were looking up, Mia told herself as she headed to pick up the girls. Jen, the care provider the girls liked the most, helped Mia get them to the car. As they each strapped in a child, Mia told Jen about her housing problems and how she almost had them resolved but lamented the longer drive.
“I can help you out with that,” Jen offered.
“How? Are you going to come and babysit for me in my new apartment?” Mia joked.
“No, but I might be able to offer you a place to live that’s closer. I just had a ‘she shed’ built in my backyard.”
“A what?” Mia asked. Jen was offering her a shed to live in?
Jen smiled. “It’s not quite how it sounds. It’s really a small cottage. Mine is set up for crafting, so I have electricity and water. It could work for a short period, and the girls might enjoy it. It would be like living in a dollhouse. Think about it.”
“I will,” Mia said as she put the girls’ bag in the trunk of her car. “And thanks.” She gave Jen a wave and got in her car.
People were generally kind. Mia had learned that long ago, which is what had made her life as a carefree single going where the wind blew her so fun. Life as a parent was full of all sorts of worries that she’d never anticipated having, but friends and acquaintances had come through for her just the same. So the message from the universe was clear. She had options, decent ones, and either way, it was only for a few weeks.
By the time she drove the ten minutes to Kenton’s house, both girls were asleep in the back seat. Also a blessing of sorts. She could slip out of the car and maybe have a talk with Kenton about moving before they woke. She hadn’t apologized to him sufficiently yesterday after the dog puke incident, and she wanted to express her thanks for having lived there for the past weeks. There. She’d make a nice little speech and start packing her stuff to move out tomorrow or the next day.
She pulled into the driveway, parked near the garage, and quietly got out of the car. Kenton was working on the front porch, scraping paint from a railing that she hadn’t even noticed was peeling. His shirt draped across his wide frame, hinting at every line and curve hiding underneath. And the muscles in his arms rose and fell from the work. A familiar warmth bloomed in her stomach. It was the same one she had felt that night they met. She sucked down a deep breath to cool her senses. When had scraping paint become so provocative?
“Hi,” she called, getting his attention as she walked closer. “I wanted to—”
“Hey,” Kenton shouted, his focus behind her and his jaw set.
Mia spun around. A man was approaching her car from the opposite side. Instinctively, she hit the lock button on the key fob. He raised something black and shiny, and she thought he was going to smash the window next to Emma, but then she heard a loud bang and froze. Was that a shot?
O
h, yes, it was. The man was holding a gun!
“Get down,” Kenton ordered, sprinting past her toward the shooter. The other man eyed Kenton before taking off with Kenton on his heels.
Mia crouched and made it to the car, getting in the back seat with the girls and locking the doors again. She pulled them from their seats and onto the car’s floor with her. Her heart was racing, and she experienced raw fear as she never had before.
“It’s okay, babies,” she tried to reassure the twins, but her voice was shaking. It was definitely not okay. Someone had just threatened her nieces.
5
Whoever the guy was, he was in shape, Kenton concluded after a two-block chase that ended with the man jumping into a waiting car and taking off. Kenton got the license plate, but he doubted it would help. Likely either stolen or a rental. Crooks didn’t tend to drive their own vehicles.
He jogged back to the house and found Mia hunkered down in her car. When he tapped on the window, he caught a look of panic on her face before she recognized him and opened the door. Her fear needled him in a way he couldn’t quite understand.
“He’s gone for now. Let me help you.” While she carried one twin, he took the other. He lifted the girl and held her close to his body. “Get in the house quickly.” Once inside, he put the twin on her feet where Mia could take her hand. “Stay away from the windows. Go into the living room and keep them busy on the floor.”
“What happened?” Mia’s ponytail was askew, and her eyes wide.
“Just do what I say,” he said. “Please.”
Even though he hadn’t left home that day and didn’t think anyone could have entered, he swept the house from the attic to the basement, looking for signs of intrusion. Finding nothing to concern him, he moved to the exterior, carefully checking the garage and yard. He found a bullet embedded in the trunk of a huge oak tree near Mia’s car. The single shot must have sounded to the neighbors like a backfire, since it hadn’t garnered any attention. Kenton was glad for that. He needed to think and make the right contacts, because he doubted this was a simple case of attempted robbery, carjacking, or kidnapping.
