Rachel shook her head. He could practically see the mental gymnastics she was doing in her mind to sort out the summer without Gavin and the family sabbatical, which he guessed was a break she looked forward to. Even if she wouldn’t admit it. “This summer is out. I’ll keep the boys here, find them a day camp or something while I’m working.”
Well, that was going to make Meemaw very unhappy. First, she lost Gavin at her summer summit. Now she was losing her only grandchildren, too.
“Can you work from the lake house?” Dave asked. “Built-in childcare with a twenty-four seven Meemaw, Pawpaw, and the uncles. There’s a big office in the library you can have all to yourself when you need to work.”
Where Travis was clipped and brusque and to the point, Dave was smooth and calm and logical.
His tone got Rachel to pause.
“Free wifi,” Travis added.
Dave glared at him as though this was precisely why he didn’t invite Travis on sales calls.
Before Rachel could answer, the doorbell chimed. Kellan and Brady barreled down the stairs like the house was on fire, and if they got outside, they could meet a real-life firefighter.
Color Travis impressed that even with their enthusiasm and the abundance of elbows thrown to the other, neither took a header into the railing.
“Mom!” Kellan bounced toward the door, screeching to a stop as he ran smack dab into her chest. “What did he send?”
Rachel placed her hands on Kellan’s shoulders as though to make him stop bouncing. It didn’t work, but she tried. “I don’t know. The door is still closed.”
He skirted to the left and around her, not even pausing for her to answer as he threw open the door. Brady cautiously followed.
Travis held the door as Rachel and Dave trailed after the boys. Rachel paused. Dave kept walking.
Travis stilled behind Rachel as the driver of the van removed two animal crates with a puppy in each one.
A golden retriever puppy in each one. Purebred if Travis had to guess.
Travis glanced at Dave. Dave, who now got to figure out what the hell to do with two puppies at the very-specific puppy-free Twin Lakes residence.
The only animal allowed there was his mother’s fake cat.
“I didn’t know you guys were getting dogs,” Dave murmured.
“Neither did I.” Rachel looked over her shoulder at him, her skin the color of ash and her eyes huge. She was grinding her teeth so hard, he could practically hear her dental bill increasing by the moment.
Uh. Damn. This was not good.
“Rach?” Travis asked. “You okay?”
“No,” she said. And he totally believed her.
The identical twins removed the identical little beasts. Travis grabbed leashes from a pouch on top of the crates and helped snap the leashes to their collars.
“There are two of them,” Rachel said to no one in particular. “Of course each kid needs his own. Because, of course.”
“I’m going to name mine Pete,” Kellan announced, hefting the squirming puppy into his arms and heading into the house. The blue leash dragged on the concrete walkway behind him.
“What about you, Brady?” Dave asked, handing out puppies like they were cotton candy at the Cherry Creek farmers market.
“Re-Pete, I guess,” he said with a shrug, lugging the second pup through the front door.
Rachel gaped as the boys rolled with the puppies like they were practicing for a jiujitsu match on Rachel’s pristine carpet.
“You both should say goodbye to Gavin,” she said, so only Travis and Dave could hear.
“Why?” Dave asked.
“Because I’m going to murder him,” she replied, her expression frozen.
Well, fuck.
She pulled out her phone and pushed a bunch of buttons before holding it to her ear.
“You think she’s ordering a hit?” Dave asked out of the side of his mouth.
Travis was 85 percent sure she was not. He gave a subtle head shake. “Nah. Too messy. She’s more creative than that.”
“Gavin?” she asked, the tether on her temper barely there, given how her voice wobbled and her cheeks reddened.
Gavin must’ve said something in response, because she was intently listening. Travis caught Dave’s gaze and they shared a brotherly moment of silence for the wrath their sibling had brought down on himself via puppies.
“Great. So glad it’s going well,” she said, totally normal. “Hey, I have a quick question.” She paused only a moment before shouting, “Have you lost your mind?”
The riot act she read Gavin was remarkably well prepared, given that she’d found out about the dogs only a few minutes before. That did not matter, because her points were both concise and effectively maneuvered into her tirade.
Travis couldn’t help it. He smiled. He leaned against the exterior of her house and watched the show.
Sure, pissed-off Rachel was kinda scary, but also oddly adorable.
Man, he ran his thumb over his bottom lip, he could just listen to Rachel yell at his brother for days and not get tired of it.
Chapter Four
“Sleep at this point is just a concept, something I’m looking forward to investigating in the future.” — Amy Poehler
Rachel
A birthday party was not the time for losing her shit.
“Everyone’s outside. Have fun.” Rachel shooed the latest kiddo into her backyard to contain and entertain them until their parents showed back up in two hours to remove them from the premises.
The party had started.
Gavin hadn’t shown up.
Again. As his wedding inched closer, the slacking on his dad duties had gotten worse. He was practically becoming Travis. Rachel was so done with covering for him.
See, Gavin was Rachel’s ex for lotsa reasons, all of which had become abundantly clear when he had two additional live beings hand delivered to her front door. Without. Asking. First.
This was the second time that had happened.
The first, the twins, was also her fault. She’d consented to the activities that led to their conception—even if she hadn’t meant for that outcome.
But no one even tried to give her an orgasm before twin puppies showed up at her front door.
Gah, there were puppies in her house. Puppies that were now hers to tend.
God, she wished someone would read her sign and bring her some freaking margaritas. Don’t get her wrong, she adored dogs. Was, in fact, totally a dog person. Her family had always had a pup or two living with them during her childhood.
But there were six kids in her family, and a mom, and a dad, and the dogs they brought into the home were from rescues—older, with adequate bladder control.
So, yes, she loved dogs. However, there were no hours left in the day for her to manage two more living beings under her care. Keeping them fed and watered, veterinarian appointments, picking up after them…
Puppies were an exponential exercise in both adorable bouncing and what-the-hell-have-I-gotten-myself-into?
She needed sleep and she needed the two months she’d been counting on to focus on her business. Her to-do list last night hadn’t shrunk. Even with Travis and Dave taking pity on her—or maybe just sticking around to prevent her from flying to Boston to cause bodily harm to their brother—she’d made only minimal progress on her to-do list.
The dogs were up like four times each. Add to that her Down Under client’s emergency wardrobe malfunction on MyTube needed Rachel’s immediate help to fix the video, and Brady woke her with a tummy ache. So she hadn’t had over sixty solid minutes of shut-eye before something, someone, or some canine needed her attention.
All of that probably contributed to her lack of fucks left about Gavin’s feelings when he was late to his kids’ birthday party.
&
nbsp; This was their birthday and it would be goddamned perfect.
Perfect after she got everything finished up. She had an eight-year-old mad scientist party plan, and that plan included watermelon slices shaped like the number eight. By God, she’d serve this watermelon in eight-shaped slices, unless she gave in to her baser desires and beat the shit out of it while pretending it was her ex-husband.
Her puppy-delivering, twin-producing, going-to-Boston-sans-children ex-husband.
“It’s Rachel,” Evelyn said, like she did every single time she walked up to her former daughter-in-law. She popped into the kitchen like a Meemaw fairy godmother. “Can I help?”
Oh, yes. Yes, yes, yes.
“Can you tie the ribbons on those?” Rachel nodded toward the gift bags she’d stayed up until two a.m. packing make-your-own slime kits, DIY rock candy, and all the necessities for a marshmallow catapult. That last one wasn’t really a mad scientist thing, but it looked super fun on Pinterest.
“Of course.” Evelyn started tying ribbons. “What else do you need?”
“I need to see if one of the uncles will supervise the games outside, someone needs to add the figurines to the cake, punch needs refilling, puppies need let out to do their business—supervised—and the watermelon needs cutting into slices that look like the number eight.” Somehow, she said all of that in one big breath.
Evelyn’s expression didn’t change, thanks to her latest facelift, but she did not start tying ribbons. Instead, she threw open the door to the backyard and called, “Bob. We need your help.”
Bob was one of Rachel’s favorite Franks because he smiled all the time, respected that she and Gavin would never reconcile, and sometimes brought her chocolate. He strode through the door to the kitchen and didn’t even get to say hello before Evelyn had him tying the bows.
“Which do you want done next, dear?” Evelyn asked.
Um.
“Punch bowl.” Rachel decided on the spot.
“Of course.” Evelyn went right to work.
Huh, this was new. Evelyn hadn’t mentioned Gavin or his whereabouts or how he’d spent the week before telling her all about Rachel and the boys and what they were up to.
“The party can start,” Dakota announced, stepping through the foyer, Gavin on her heels. “We’re here!”
“I dislike that woman,” Evelyn said, not under her breath, as she scurried out the door with the punch refill pitcher. She didn’t even turn to acknowledge Gavin or Dakota.
Now, this? This was odd.
Apparently, Gavin and Dakota were both in the doghouse.
Rachel would say Dakota wasn’t so bad, but she had clearly been part of Operation Puppy 2.0, so she was not on the list of Rachel’s favorite people at the moment. Actually, she wasn’t even on the list of people Rachel would tolerate today, and after one puppy peed in the hall for the fourth time, Dakota was very close to being put on the list of people who were not getting a Christmas present.
She’d already decided that Gavin wasn’t on the gift list.
Rachel gave excellent presents. Everyone said so. Sometimes, she even helped others shop for presents—she was that good.
“Dakota, Gavin, so glad you could make it.” Rachel slashed the watermelon, cutting it clean in two with one quick slice of the butcher knife.
“Rach, hi,” Gavin said as he and Dakota moseyed into the kitchen holding two giant gift boxes.
Travis came through the back door and tipped his paper cup toward the boxes the two lugged into the kitchen. She got co-ed Travis today with a black and gold University of Colorado T-shirt and twill cargo shorts. He seemed to have been wrestling with the kids in the grass, given the bits of her lawn falling from his hair and the grin attached to his mouth.
“There better not be anything alive in there.” He gestured to the box in Gavin’s hands.
If whatever was in those boxes was alive, Rachel might have to lock herself in her room to scream.
“Mom said you need help,” Travis said, turning to Rachel, more of her lawn falling to the floor. “Somethin’ about taking the dogs out?”
Rachel nodded, giving a chin jerk to indicate the dining room. Travis went to spring the puppies from where they were sequestered away from the chaos of the children and the science experiments Rachel wasn’t entirely sure were puppy safe.
“What else can I do?” Evelyn asked, and you know what? Rachel decided right then that she liked the woman after all. Two presents this year for her holiday season.
Sure, Evelyn may have had unhinged hopes of a Rachel-and-Gavin-kiss-and-make-up fiesta, but she also offered to freaking help and didn’t offer to just hire someone to do it.
Rachel gestured to the fruit and vegetable baskets she kept near the fridge. “Would you—”
“Puppies!” Molly shrieked, cutting straight through Rachel’s request. Apparently, she’d caught sight of Travis with a puppy under each arm.
The sight of Travis with two puppies? Whooo boy, it nearly dissolved the solid mad Rachel had been nursing since the canine arrival. Nearly. And she was definitely not going to evaluate that further.
“Evelyn, would you hand me that zucchini?” Rachel pointed at the zucchini on the counter next to Gavin. The zucchini looked mighty comfortable nestled in a brown wicker basket filled with other produce. Rachel didn’t need a produce aisle to make her point on this one. She had her ex-husband, a girthy vegetable, and a knife.
Without a question, Evelyn extracted the zucchini and handed it over to her. If she didn’t know better, Rachel would’ve thought that Evelyn knew what she planned to do with the vegetable. Knew and approved.
Huh.
Travis handed one of the dogs over to Molly. “Let’s take these guys outside and let the weird vibe of the kitchen continue on without our presence.”
Rachel held the zucchini in her hand, inspected it, set it carefully on the cutting board next to the watermelon, and made eye contact with Gavin.
He looked to the produce, then back to her. “What’s going—”
She slashed through the zucchini with the knife, quick and with precision.
For the first time in a long time, Rachel felt a little better. Not quite so wound up. Maybe she should take up zucchini chopping as a stress reliever.
Oh, or there was that place where she could go and throw axes. That could be fun, too.
Already feeling lighter, she deftly continued chopping until the entire vegetable was well and truly diced.
Gavin stood unmoving, totally pale. He did break their locked gaze, his moving to the sliced zucchini before sliding it back to her.
Bless her heart, even Dakota’s mouth opened the tiniest of inches.
Good. Rachel had made her point.
“You and I are going to chat.” Rachel hung on to Gavin’s gaze a moment longer.
Gavin took a step toward her. “Rachel, I know you’re upset—”
“What did he do?” Molly apparently hadn’t made it outside before Rachel’s zucchini slicing demonstration.
Rachel glanced at her best friend, who was covering Pete’s eyes with her hand.
“What are you doing?” Rachel asked.
“I didn’t want him to see the massacre,” Molly whispered.
“Come outside and I’ll tell you all about what Gavin did.” Travis held the door open for Molly.
The party was hopping in the backyard, Kellan, Brady, and all their friends bouncing on the trampoline Gavin had bought for them last year.
That present hadn’t sucked, even though there had been an initial concern about broken bones and trampoline-related accidents and how it would fit. Eventually, she’d let it be, because Rachel could handle a lot. She rolled with it, rearranging the backyard furniture so it would fit.
The trampoline didn’t require food and shelter and love and…
/> She set the knife carefully on the cutting board, then worked to untie her apron.
“I think it happened,” Travis said to Molly where he probably thought Rachel couldn’t hear, but she could totally hear.
“Seriously, what is happening?” Molly melodramatically stage whispered.
“He pushed her last nerve,” Travis said, deadpan.
They had no idea. Nada. She was so done.
Rachel started toward the dining room. “Let’s go have that chat, Gavin.”
Gavin, however, didn’t follow.
He seemed to be in some state of shock. Probably because of the zucchini sitting there diced up nicely next to two slices of watermelon shaped like the number eight.
“Now.” Rachel used the tone that always worked on the boys, hoping her take-no-shit tone covered her utter distress at her ex-husband and what he’d pulled with the puppies, not showing up in time to help with the birthday party set-up, and sending his brothers to ambush her into taking their kids on the family vacation that lasted two-freaking-months.
Seriously, what kind of family vacation lasted two whole months? Four days was plenty. Her family managed to do all the socializing they needed to do each year in four days. They’d all get together. They’d have some dinners. Maybe hit the beach. Then they’d all go home.
That was how family vacations should go.
Not with the Puffle-Yum Franks. Oh no. They had to well and truly drive one another up the wall for sixty full days.
Rachel did her best attempt of a saunter out of the kitchen to the dining room.
Gavin, thank goodness, finally followed her.
Unfortunately for him, he started to speak before they reached the dining room. “Rach, you’re being un—”
“Do not.” She whirled on him, shoving her pointer finger in his face. And yes, it was kind of comical, but no, she didn’t care. He had pissed her right the hell off. Given that before Dakota, and before the puppies, they’d had a lovely co-parenting relationship, he was ruining everything. “We are going in there”—she moved her pointer finger from his face to the dining room—“to discuss your harebrained idea about giving our sons puppies that will live at my house.”
Rachel, Out of Office Page 5
