by Sophia Gray
“Coming!” Marcy called from inside the house. “Lena, honey, go get Gabby’s bag please. Oh good Lord, what have you done to the cat?”
Falcon heard a chorus of high-pitched giggles. He cast a skeptical look at Bridgette.
Bridgette’s look mirrored his. She shrugged to him.
At last the door swung open, revealing a frazzled-looking Marcy—her hair wild and her eyes a little wide. “Bridgette, sweetie, how are—what is he doing here?” The woman’s suddenly cold eyes flickered to Falcon, her posture turning wary.
“Marcy, this is Kyle, Gabby’s father. He’s here because I think he didn’t make the best impression earlier, and you deserve a full explanation.”
Falcon stood quietly behind Bridgette as she detailed what had happened over the last few days. She stuck as close to the truth as she could without giving away the true details, something that impressed Falcon. He realized she was trying to be as honest with Marcy as she possibly could.
Bridgette detailed the first few incidents, the destruction of her storage space, her total loss as to what to do. She even described how, after running into him, she’d started to consider the possibility of mending their estranged relationship.
Bridgette spoke quietly enough that the girls wouldn’t overhear, but Falcon doubted they were even paying attention judging by the excited shrieks coming from the house.
Marcy listened patiently, her features gradually relaxing out of the state of hostility they’d taken on, dissolving into a look of genuine horror and sympathy. “Oh, hon,” she gushed at last, “I wish you’d said something. Oh goodness…but you have it straightened out now, right?”
Bridgette glanced back at Falcon, a soft smile on her lips. “Almost. Kyle is still helping me sort through the details.”
Marcy seemed to snap back to herself suddenly. “Oh, and here we are standing around at the door, yammering away. What am I thinking? Would you two like to come in?”
“We really should be on our way,” Bridgette replied, though she stepped into the home at Marcy’s behest.
Falcon hesitated. Marcy wasn’t nearly as hostile, but he still wasn’t getting a good vibe from her. When Bridgette turned back to him expectantly, though, and he hustled in after her. He took a moment to inventory the interior of the home.
It wasn’t anything special, just a typical two-story house. Wood floors, kitchen to the left, living room to the right, a carpeted staircase leading up to the rest of the house. There were a few mundane decorations on the walls, still life paintings and various tchotchkes.
“You can leave your shoes on,” Marcy told them. “I haven’t gotten around to vacuuming yet anyway. Girls!”
There was no answer.
Marcy rolled her eyes and shook her head. “I told them to be ready to go. Girls!” She waited another moment, and when there was no response, she muttered, “Probably outside again. I’ll be back. Just make yourselves at home.”
Falcon heard a faint tinkle. His attention snapped up to the top of the stairs, where a chubby orange housecat was waddling toward the stairs, the tiny jingle bell on its collar tinkling as it went along. He immediately saw what had caught Marcy’s attention earlier.
The girls must have stuffed the poor feline into a doll’s dress—one that was clearly too small for it. The sleeves of the pink ruffled dress rode up on the cat’s legs, bunching up its fur and skin. The miserable-looking creature seemed to be trying to slink away from its captors.
Another chorus of piercing giggles echoed down the stairs followed by the small, hurried thud of footsteps. Seconds later Lena and Gabby were hurtling down the stairs after their prey, Lena carrying a hairbrush and Gabby wielding a tube of red lipstick.
The cat scrambled down the stairs, squeezing through the railing near the bottom and bounding off out of sight. Lena and Gabby continued to hurtle down the stairs after it, their faces split by bright, exuberant grins. They skirted lightly to a stop just at the bottom of the stairs.
“Mommy,” Gabby said, her grin disappearing. Her bright eyes darted to Falcon, apprehensive, no doubt remembering their first meeting.
Falcon sighed internally. Damn it. He wished he could take that back. He should have known better to confront Bridgette in public like that. Now Gabby was afraid of him.
“Girls?” Marcy came puffing back to the entryway, looking even more haggard than before. “What did I tell you? Lena, Gabby needs to go. I told you not to be getting into anything new. Is that my lipstick?”
Gabby dipped her head down, looking properly abashed. She offered it out to Marcy, who took it promptly. “Lena said we could use it.”
Marcy put a hand to her temple. “You have your own makeup to play pretend, Lena, don’t you?”
Bridgette cleared her throat lightly. “Marcy, thank you so much for having Gabby over for so long. I swear I’m going to find a way to pay you back.”
“Oh, it was no trouble,” Marcy brushed her off. “She’s welcome any time.”
Falcon snorted. “Looks like they were a lot of trouble.”
“What Kyle means,” Bridgette interjected swiftly, “is we know that watching kids can be a real handful, and we deeply appreciate how much work you’ve put in for us.”
Falcon nodded. “What she said.”
Gabby moved to Bridgette’s side and took her hand. “Mommy,” she whispered, though not so quietly that Falcon couldn’t hear. “Why is that man here with you?”
Falcon watched as Bridgette brushed a hand over her daughter’s red curls. “I’ll explain everything when we get home, okay? Now say goodbye to Miss Marcy and Lena, and say thank you for everything.”
Gabby cast another wary glance at Falcon before turning back to Marcy and Lena. “Bye. Thanks for everything. Maybe Lena can have a sleepover at our house soon.”
“Yeah!” Lena chimed in.
Falcon didn’t miss the tightening in Marcy’s eyes before she plastered on a friendly smile. “We’ll have to see.”
Falcon smiled, too, fighting the urge to glare at her. It’ll take time, he told himself. There wasn’t much about him that screamed “let me watch your kids.” But if he was going to hang around, he imagined that meant he’d have to stay on friendly terms with Bridgette and her mom friends. So he’d have to work on winning over Marcy.
I’d rather be back running drugs in Mexico, he thought. But for Bridgette and Gabby, he could put up with suburbia and soccer moms.
Gabby still clung to Bridgette as they made their way back to her car. They’d ridden together, though Falcon had initially wanted to ride his bike. He hated being crammed inside her little midsize car with the windows rolled up. It just didn’t feel right.
“Mommy, you still haven’t told me what he’s doing here,” Gabby whispered loudly to Bridgette.
“Gabby, honey, this is your dad,” Bridgette told her. They reached the car. Bridgette opened the back door up for Gabby. “Climb in so we can go home.”
Gabby stared fixedly at Falcon. “But you said my daddy went away. You said he was a bad man and that we were better off without him.”
Falcon could sense that Bridgette was getting a little flustered. And he couldn’t blame her. How was she supposed to explain to her kid how he wasn’t the man she’d thought he was?
“Well, I was wrong,” Bridgette replied.
“You lied to me?” Gabby demanded, outraged.
“No,” Falcon cut in. He moved forward slowly, trying to gauge her reaction. He really didn’t want to scare her any worse than he already had. He knelt down so he was just a bit taller than her, hoping making himself smaller would make him seem a little less threatening. “No one lied. Your mommy and I just had a misunderstanding. Your mommy thought I was mad at her, and I thought she was mad at me, but really we had nothing to be mad about.” It was close enough to the truth, he figured. Good enough for now.
“You said bad words,” Gabby accused him sullenly. “And you were really mean.”
Falcon did his best to l
ook contrite. “I did,” he agreed solemnly. “And you know what? I got into big trouble for it. I’m sure you get in trouble when you’re mean and say bad words, don’t you?”
“Mommy washes my mouth out with soap.”
Falcon couldn’t help but grin crookedly at that. “And that’s exactly what your mommy did to me, too. She washed my mouth out with soap. So now I know better than to be mean and say bad words. Right?” He cast a conspiratorial look at Bridgette.
She rolled her eyes at him. It was a good thing she was standing behind Gabby.
“I guess,” Gabby agreed grudgingly. She turned back to Bridgette. “He’s not coming home with us, is he?”
“He needs a place to stay. Don’t worry; he’ll be on his best behavior now, I promise.”
“And if not, your mommy’ll spank me,” Falcon promised, winking at Bridgette.
“Okay,” Gabby mumbled. She crawled into the backseat and shut the door.
Bridgette moved over beside Falcon and smacked him in the back of the head.
“Ow,” he protested as he stood. He brushed his knees off. “What was that for?”
“First rule: no innuendos in front of Gabby.”
Falcon heaved a sigh. “But that’s no fun.”
“You know what else is no fun? Playing with yourself. And that’s exactly what you’ll be doing if you break my rules.”
Falcon followed her into the car, dropping down into the passenger’s seat beside her. “We’re back together for not even a week and you’re already threatening me with no”—Falcon glanced cautiously back at Gabby, who was staring out the window distractedly—“playtime?”
“My house, my rules.”
The rest of the ride was mostly silent.
# # #
Falcon fought against the feeling of unease in his stomach. Of all the shit he’d done, of everything he’d been through in the past few years, nothing had ever scared him as much as what he was about to start here—parenting.
Christ, Gabby already mistrusted him. He was no better than a stranger. Maybe worse since he’d got into it with Bridgette in front of her. What if she never trusted him? What if she resented him?
He felt a light touch against the top of his hand. He looked over to see that Bridgette had covered her hand with his. It was a simple gesture, maybe even an unconscious one, but the warmth of her skin against his was enough to dispel some of his creeping doubt.
He could do this. Whatever it fucking took, he would do everything in his power to make Gabby understand that he would give anything to make her safe and happy.
They drove to the outskirts of town, up to a little cottage of a house. It was nothing big or fancy, just one of the factory pre-made models with a drive leading up to it and a modest backyard. She’d already given him the grand tour earlier when he’d made the first trip over with some of his stuff. Not that he’d brought much with him. He’d have to make a run at some point to get the rest of his stuff from where he’d been staying near the border.
There were a lot of arrangements that he still had to make if he was really planning on moving in with Bridgette. But he could worry about that later.
When they got out of the car, Gabby bounded ahead of them. She seemed to have come out of her sullen mood. She ran straight to the welcome mat in front of the door, lifting it up, searching, Falcon assumed, for the spare key.
“She likes to be the one to unlock the house when we get back,” Bridgette explained to Falcon as they made their way up to the door. “It makes her feel like a big girl.”
Sure enough, Gabby had the door open in minutes. She held it open for Bridgette and Falcon, a look of pride on her face. Her grin was infectious; Falcon couldn’t help but smile back at her.
Once they were inside, Bridgette set to going around the house to turn some of the lights on. “I don’t know if I have much in the fridge,” she called back to Falcon. “I might have to do a grocery run.”
Falcon was too busy watching Gabby. She had stopped in her tracks in the middle of the hall and was scrutinizing him intensely.
“You’re not allowed in my room,” she announced at last. “Not unless you have permission.”
Falcon nodded in mock seriousness. “Okay. Got it.”
Gabby rushed off down the hall.
“No running in the house!” Bridgette called. She rounded the corner from the kitchen, her eyes wide with a look of exasperation. “So what’s the plan?”
“Huh?” Falcon asked.
“For dinner. Maybe we should just order in. It would probably be a lot easier.”
“Oh. Yeah, sure.” Falcon was still staring off down the hall, feeling a little dazed. He felt like he needed to say more to Gabby. But he didn’t want to come on too strong and freak her out with too many questions. He didn’t want to ignore her, either, and he didn’t have the faintest clue where the line was between those two extremes.
“She’ll come around,” Bridgette promised him, as if reading his mind. “It takes her a while to warm up to people. But don’t worry. I think she likes you.”
Falcon scoffed. “Yeah right. You heard her. I’m not allowed in her room.”
“If she didn’t like you, she wouldn’t have said that. She doesn’t talk to people she’s not comfortable with. Just give it time. None of this is going to happen overnight.”
“Heh. Sure as hell feels like this all happened overnight.”
Bridgette wrapped her hands around his waist, stretched up on her toes, and planted a kiss directly on his lips. “The last week has been crazy. I don’t think it would be so bad if things slowed down a bit now.”
The door at the end of the hall cracked open. Gabby’s head poked out. “Are you coming?” she demanded.
Falcon, confused, looked down to Bridgette, then back over to Gabby, whose little lips were pressed in an impatient line. “Coming where?”
“To my room.” She rolled her eyes, looking just like her mother. “Come on. I have to show you all my princesses.”
“I thought I wasn’t allowed in—“
“If you knock, I can give you the secret password,” she explained, as if it were so obvious that she couldn’t believe that he hadn’t caught on.
Bridgette beamed at him, amused. “Well, go on. I know you can’t wait to see all her princesses.”
Falcon kissed her again then started down the hall toward Gabby’s room. He felt strangely warm and satisfied. He knew this wasn’t the end of it, that it was going to take a lot more work to make up for all the time he’d lost.
But this didn’t seem like a bad start.
Epilogue
Bridgette
Bridgette glanced up at the clock again. It was almost three. Time to pick Gabby up from school. She started untying her apron.
“ Gail, I’m taking off,” she called back into the kitchen. Her employee was finishing off their last batch of poppy seed muffins, a special last-minute order. “Can you handle things?”
“Sure thing, Mrs. Parker,” came the younger girl’s enthusiastic response. She was a hard worker, just like the other two hires Bridgette had made in the past months.
Bridgette rolled her eyes to herself. “I told you to call me Bridgette.”
Kyle had been true to his word about making sure her bakery got back on track. She didn’t ask too many questions, because she guessed there were a lot of details that she didn’t need or want to know.
After the Raging Reapers had fooled the rest of Martin’s higher-ups into meeting at the warehouse complex where they’d stashed the drugs, and called an anonymous tip in to the local police, Kyle and the other Reapers had somehow gotten one of Martin’s underlings to confess to stalking her, breaking into her bakery, and causing all the damage. She didn’t know how they got him to accept that slew of felonies, but that seemed like one of the details that she was better off not knowing.
However they’d managed it, the result was that she’d been able to file an insurance claim. That, along with all th
e money Kyle had spent on advertisements and business consultants—without her knowledge and consent, of course—had translated to a massive influx of customers, and a sharp spike in revenue. She’d already started shipping her product to some of the surrounding towns, and she expected to be selling all around the region by the start of the next year.
The bell at the front door chimed. Marcy slipped in, Lena in tow.
“Marcy!” Bridgette cried, rushing over and sweeping the older woman into a hug. “How have you been? I haven’t seen you since the wedding! The muffins are almost done, by the way.”
