“I’m not leaving until you and Iris get in the car.” As always, I’d forgotten how tall he is. I don’t know why, but in my head he’s never this tall or broad. “Get in the car and I’ll pretend this never happened.” Carl gestures around us with disgust pinching his face, until his eyes flicker over my shoulder.
Although I can’t see Garrett, I know he’s there. I can feel his closeness, and maybe I’m imagining it or it’s plain wishful thinking, but I swear I feel his anger radiate to me.
“I got a call from a friend today, telling me that you were filing for divorce and sole custody.”
“If you want to talk about it, your lawyer can reach out to mine.”
I’m hoping Mark won’t mind me calling Gretchen up. She’s the only attorney I know here. She was so amazing and quick with the paperwork for the custody filing.
I swallow down the urge to yell at him all the reasons he’s never going to see my daughter again and turn to find Garrett only a few feet behind me. There’s a sharpness to his features that doesn’t soften even when I smile at him. And I realize that he’s in protector mode—the reason he’s not softening at my expression is because he’s not looking at me. His eyes are firmly behind me, hard and glacial.
“Nice touch with the farmhand, but I think he’s missing his pitchfork.” I feel a hand ghost my arm at the same time as Garrett’s fist flies past my face, and the sudden crack of bone has me flinching away.
It’s just the one sound that keeps echoing in my head, again and again as I spin fast enough to catch sight of Garrett, pulling back for another hit, underarm, straight to Carl’s ribs. And another and another as Carl tries to stop him but fails miserably. All three dogs are growling and howling as they pace frantically between me and the two men.
Carl might be tall and broad, and he might pay the best personal trainer to keep him in shape, but the reality is that his muscles are all show. They haven’t hardened from any kind of labor like Garrett’s. He stands no chance because Garrett is taller and broader.
A loud gunshot rings through the air, making all three of us look back to find Jo on the porch with a shotgun I didn’t even know she owned. It’s enough to break them apart and send the dogs flying toward her.
“I don’t need a pitchfork, jackass,” Garrett growls behind me. “You ever touch Avery again and I’ll break every fucking bone in your body.”
The pounding of my heart is almost deafening as Carl’s eyes meet mine. A scuff shadows his cheekbone, and his lip is bust too. All injuries he gave me. I should feel venerated by it, but I’m still resentful and enraged. I still want to hurt him myself. I want to make him hurt, like he did me.
It’s the fuss in the background that has me turning back toward the house. Iris comes running outside aimlessly, wide, terrified eyes on me as she gets closer, and then she looks behind me and stops. Frozen. It’s not until I reach her and pick her up that she thaws and clings to me.
“I don’t wanna leave. I don’t wanna go back, Mommy.” She keeps crying into the crook of my neck while I try to calm her. “Please, Mommy.”
“You don’t get a choice.” Carl spits his blood on Garrett’s boots with a victorious grin on his face. “This isn’t your—” Another loud shot cuts off his words, closer this time and barely missing the back of Carl’s Ferrari.
All I can do is hold on to Iris as tight as I can, holding my ground with the dogs returning to stand in between us,
“Leave,” I yell at him, the sound ripping my throat to shreds and leaving me hoarse.
“You heard,” Jo snarls as Cap’s deep howl fills the air. “Get!”
Carl has the audacity to laugh as he tries to make it past Garrett, but he trusses him up by the bloody collar of his white shirt, dragging him back to his pride and joy.
“Get in your limp-dick mobile and get the fuck out of here,” he tells him coolly while he opens the door to his car and throws him in haphazardly.
“You’ll regret this.”
“Not a fucking chance, asshole.” Garrett slams his door shut, taking a step back to watch Carl rev his engine so loud that I feel it run through me even when he disappears into the distance.
Jo and I huddle as my relief that Carl’s gone is overwhelmed by my shock at Garrett’s actions. He’s always been so gentle, even when he’s been pushy with me. Always so tempered, that I’m still surprised at the way he beat on Carl. And I think that he’s taken aback by it too because he doesn’t say a single word as he walks away toward the paddock.
Chapter Fourteen
AVERY
The steam from the bath fills the room as I pour in some of Iris’s favorite bath milk. It smells like toasted marshmallows and vanilla. Any other child would be calmed by something herbal or floral, but I think Jo is right. Iris is all sugar; she’s sweet from the inside out.
Stripping her off while she’s sitting on the vanity, I pull the knots on either side of her head loose.
“You know, I think we might have to get your hair cut soon.”
“I want to grow it out like a mermaid.” She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes, and it makes me want to cuddle her into me and never let her go.
Iris is mine to protect and to nurture, and I can’t help but feel like I failed her somehow. All I can think about is fixing the damage I’ve caused.
“I think mermaid hair would look beautiful.”
Her smile lifts a little more, making my heart melt. I almost feel like the best mom in the world for making her smile brighter when she’s still so clearly upset.
“Makenna will be back soon,” I chirp, hoping it’ll make her feel better. Bring back some of the happiness from earlier. “Are you excited?”
“I wanna stay here with Doc and Jojo. I don’t want to leave.” Heavy tears sluice down her pretty face, tracking her cheeks. “I don’t want to go home, and I don’t want my daddy to be mine anymore. He’s mean.”
“Oh, baby, I know you’re sad and scared, but it’s going to be okay. Mommy is going to fix everything.”
I don’t know how yet, but I will. Starting with the divorce papers Carl burnt today.
“And we’re gonna stay?”
“Iris…this isn’t our—” I pause at the realization that I’m more at home here than I’ve ever been in our perfect house in DC. I haven’t felt this at home since I moved out of my parents’ house. “You have school and peewee swimmers in Washington, and Mommy has her job.”
“But there’s an aquarium here too. Makenna said it’s big and that there are lots of fish and tanks.”
“How about we go see it for ourselves and we’ll see how we feel afterward?”
“I never want to go back. I don’t even like peewee swimmers—surfing is a lot more fun, and Doc said he’ll take me anytime I want.”
“You love swimming.” I try to catch her gaze as she looks down at her lap and shakes her head. “I bet they have a peewee club here too.”
“So we don’t have to go back, do we? I can go to Kenny’s school, and we can be in the same class, so if you have to work, Charlie can take me home.”
Oh man, she’s clearly been thinking about this and talking it over with Makenna because between the two of them, they have it all figured out. I wish it were as easy as they think, but I have a contract to see through in DC, and everything is there. We have a house waiting for us that’s full of good memories and ready for more.
Picking her up, I take her over to the bath and lower her into it, chuckling at the way she lies back and hums happily.
“If we stay, we would have to find our own place to live. We couldn’t stay with Charlie and Mark forever.”
“I know, but maybe we could find a house on the beach that would make you happy, like Doc makes you happy when he tells you jokes.”
Iris closes her eyes, visibly relaxing as I cup some water over her exposed shoulders.
“You make me very happy.”
“But Doc makes you look more happy, like when he kisses you.”
Thrown by her statement, I fluster for what to say and how to react.
“Garrett doesn’t kiss me,” I tell her hoarsely with the way my throat swells in my panic.
“Sure he does.” Quirking her brow, she opens one eye to look at me. “I saw him kissing you at his house.”
“Umm…”
“Remember when you were in the garden?”
“Mmhmm…”
“Silly Mommy,” she giggles. “You were smiling, and that means you liked it. Doesn’t it?”
“Well…”
“Didn’t you like it?”
“Yes, I guess I did.” At my reply, she shuts her eyes again.
“Doc says you have a pretty smile,” Iris tells me as I sit on the floor, leaning back onto the bath. “That it’s precious.”
“You like Garrett, huh?” I tip my head back and close my eyes, remembering what it felt like when he kissed my cheeks.
With my heart thrumming at the mere memory, I can barely hear when she says, “I wish he was my daddy. He likes me.”
“Iris, baby.” I go up on my knees and turn to find her staring at the ceiling with tears in her eyes. “You have a daddy.”
“But he’s mean,” she rasps with a twist to her face. “And he shouted and hit you.”
“He made a bad decision, and just because we had a fight, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you.”
“Jo says that when you love someone, you don’t hurt them.” Her eyes flicker to mine before glancing down her nose at the bubbly surface of the water. “He never goes to watch me swim, and he didn’t show up for the father-daughter picnic at my school. I had to sit with my teacher until you came to get me.”
“Sometimes adults forget things.”
“You never forget. Garrett promised to take me surfing, and he did it. Jo doesn’t yell at me when I’m clumsy. I want a daddy like Kenny’s—Mark plays with her all the time.”
“I’m sorry, baby,” I murmur, swallowing down the hurt and tears that threaten to overwhelm me.
“I don’t want to go back,” she tells me again.
“Okay.” I’m not sure what I’m going to do, but I’ll do anything to make her happy, and if staying will do that… “We don’t have to go back.”
“Promise?”
“I promise I’ll do everything I can to make you happy, sweetie.”
“So we can get a house next to Doc’s on the beach? That way he can take me surfing all the time.”
“How about we slow down on the plans and go help Jo make the apple pies?”
“Okay, but I can go to Kenny’s school?”
“I’ll look into it.”
“When we get our house, can we get our own puppy?
“Umm…Iris, slow down.”
“It’s only a puppy—we can take it for walks on the beach. Doc loves all the animals.”
“But it would be our puppy, so it would live with us, not with Doc.”
“I know, but it would mean he would come see us all the time like he comes to see Jo.”
“I think he would come and see you even if we didn’t have a puppy.”
“Silly Mommy. He would come and see you too, and tell you jokes and give you kisses.”
I go about bathing her while trying to contain the butterflies fluttering in my stomach.
This wasn’t how I imagined this conversation would go. Iris has always been perceptive, but I had no idea that she had been thinking so hard about things. I thought I’d done an okay job of smoothing over all of Carl’s carelessness and neglect, but it appears that I was wrong. And I’m going to make up for it as best as I can.
The kitchen island is lined with more apple pies than I’ve seen in my whole life. Each small pie looks beautiful with its lattice top and the heart and star shapes that Iris cut out to decorate the edges.
“I can’t believe he had the audacity to show up there,” Priscilla tells me over the phone as I cover the selection with one of Jo’s large net covers.
“I can,” I scoff as Charlie’s loud growl sounds from their end. “Bullshit he wouldn’t!”
Let’s be honest, if he could participate in the bribery of funds and still walk around like he’s done nothing wrong…
“He’s gone now and Garrett didn’t hold back, so I doubt he’ll show up here anytime soon.” Or at least, I hope.
“Make sure you look after yourself and our girl,” she tells me. “I’ll call you soon, or maybe I’ll come visit. It’s been a while since I’ve been to Virginia.”
I can almost hear Charlie begging me to put her off, but unlike her, I don’t have it in me. I don’t want to upset Priscilla, so I tell her, “You know where we are.”
“I do. Take care, darling.”
“You too.”
When she hangs up, I look around the kitchen for something to do to keep distracting myself from today’s shitshow. After this afternoon, there’s been some tension. The front door is locked, and when I went to clean up the crap Carl left behind, it was all gone already. No doubt Garrett did it. He’s been unusually quiet the rest of the day, and I’ve been too embarrassed to talk to him about what happened. I don’t know whether to thank him or rebuke him for what he did. A part of me is scared that Carl will retaliate and hurt him because of me. I don’t want to be the cause of any hurt when it comes to Garrett.
“Hey, sugar,” Jo calls, nodding Iris over. “I have a surprise for you.”
“What is it?” Iris skips to her, abandoning her glass of milk on the counter.
“Since you were saying that you’re going to stay, I thought you might want your own room.”
All Iris could talk about when we were helping with the pies was the conversation we had. How I promised we could stay and get a puppy. I should’ve known she would’ve taken what she wanted from the conversation and gone wild with it.
“Really?” I smile at the excitement in her voice, noticing how she takes each step up the stairs slowly, ahead of Jo, who’s a lot slower using the handrail and her stick.
“Big girls should all have their own pretty rooms,” I hear Jo tell her as they disappear out of sight.
Piling some of the dishes from dinner at one side of the sink, I start rinsing them before loading them into the dishwasher, humming to myself.
“Here, let me help you.” Garrett brings over what is left of the dirty dishes from dinner.
I’m so aware of his presence and the silence around us that I jump out of my skin when a fork falls loudly on a plate. My heart is hammering faster than I can take. With my head spinning, I hold on to the side of the sink, reminding myself to breathe.
“I’m sorry,” he tells me as he takes a measured step back. “It slipped out of my hand.”
It takes me far too long to get myself in check, only managing a forced smile and nod that’s as frantic as my heartbeat.
“It startled me, that’s all,” I manage to pant eventually. It doesn’t even convince me. Still, Garrett nods.
We haven’t been alone since the beach. I made sure of it because it was easier than having to constantly keep myself in check. But now I feel like a fool. Especially after my conversation with Jo. And that one raindrop…maybe it was a sign. Maybe.
I continue rinsing the dishes and piling them on the side, trying to ignore the fact that he’s standing on the other side of the dishwasher looking at me as though he expects me to fall apart. Maybe I would if he wasn’t standing there, but with him near everything feels like it might be okay.
Rather than putting the glass I’m rinsing back down on the side, I hold it out to him. Like a peace offering.
“You told me to let you help me. Staring isn’t helping, Doc.”
“I enjoy staring at you.” His entire demeanor changes, as though I’ve given him the okay to breathe.
“That’s kind of creepy.”
“I guess it is. You can add creep to my list of traits, sunshine.”
My heart sputters at his words and the lopsided smirk on his face. Ev
erything inside me vibrates, and I feel something other than fear and trepidation. All my worries sink somewhere into the distance. In longer than I can recall, the sound of my racing heart isn’t making me sick to my stomach. There’s no dread, only him, with his bust lip and bruised knuckles.
Exactly like it has since our conversation, Jo’s words echo around my head. He would do anything for you, but you’ve got to trust him and let him in.
Garrett takes the glass from me, and as I watch him slot it into the tray, I ask, “Why do you call me sunshine?”
The long strands of his hair fall in front of his eyes, and I can hardly resist the urge to brush it back. My hands are aching to touch him and feel the scratch of his stubble on my skin along with the warmth of his flesh and the hardness of his muscles.
“If I told you, I’d have to kill you,” he laughs, and I freeze.
I don’t know if it was seeing Carl today, or whether somewhere in the back of my mind I still believe that he can make good on that one threat. My breath hitches awkwardly before I compose myself.
Awareness dawns on his face. It hits him so hard that his entire body stiffens. “Shit. Fuck…Avery…”
“It’s okay.”
He takes a deep breath, snapping his mouth shut along with his eyes. Scrubbing his hands along his face, he turns and walks away like he did earlier. Cold assaults me, an instant loss that rampages through me. The only feeling trampling through me is fear that if he walks away, he won’t ever come back. That thought is enough to gut me.
“No, Garrett, wait!” I start after him through the partly open concertina doors at the back of the house, following down the porch steps. “Doc!”
I pause beside him in front of the water, listening to him breathe so hard that the rasp vibrates through me.
Garrett shoves his hands into the pockets of his shorts. The warmth from his closeness is so welcome. So needed. I crave it so damn much. The way it makes me feel. I’m not alone when he’s near. He doesn’t understand that I’ve been in so many places, surrounded by so many people, and been so terribly alone. But not with him.
Endurance: A Salvation Society Novel Page 12
