Bonus Kisses

by Freya Barker

  “It’s her wedding dress.”

  I sit down beside her, my eyes automatically drawn to the large frame hanging over the dresser. Even though I wasn’t there for the event, I’ve seen enough pictures to know my sister was gorgeous on her wedding day. Still, none of them showed her radiance like the enlarged image on the wall, dancing by herself in the small orchard out back, her long skirt twirling around her legs.

  “She was so beautiful,” I whisper. “Sofie will look just like her when she’s older.”

  “I know.”

  “We should save the dress for her.”

  “Yes, but that’s not all that’s in this bag,” Mom says, standing up and laying the garment bag on the bed, pulling down the zipper. I get a glimpse of a deep turquoise material. “I think you should have this. It matches the beads in your hair.” She pulls out a fifties-style dress with wide straps, a tight bodice, and full skirt. The material is a luxurious Shantung silk with large, dark green, tropical foliage and an occasional deep cherry flower on the turquoise background.

  “It’s beautiful.”

  It is. It’s absolutely stunning, yet nothing at all I’d imagine my sister ever wearing.

  “It’s perfect,” Mom confirms, her eyes meeting mine, but I don’t see any of the anger and resentment I’m used to seeing there, only sadness. “And it’s yours.”

  “Mom, I don’t think—“ I start, but she shakes her head and I snap my mouth shut.

  “It was always yours; she had it made for you to wear on her wedding day.”

  Rafe

  The last thing I expect to find is Sarah and Ed’s car in front of the house.

  I’ve been out most of the day at a local dude ranch west of town, for my quarterly visit. Nothing too exciting, just routine exams of the horses and the small herd of cattle, and administering necessary vaccinations. It still takes up a whole day and the rest of the week I’m scheduled to visit the other farms in the area raising livestock.

  My normal routine would be to stop at the clinic to update the ranch’s files, but fueled by a sudden sense of urgency I aim straight for the house.

  The first thing I hear when I walk in is the loud slamming of a door upstairs. Both the living room and kitchen are empty, so I take the stairs two a time. The door to the master is open and I can just see Sarah zipping up the garment bag I know holds Nicky’s wedding dress. Overcome with a surge of anger, I burst into the room.

  “What are you doing?”

  Startled, her head snaps around, and I notice guilt behind the shine of tears in her eyes. “Rafe,” she mutters.

  “What did you say to her this time?” I pelt another question at her, but don’t wait around for the answer. I turn on my heel and head down the hallway to the spare bedroom, only vaguely registering the large number of garbage bags against the wall.

  “Taz?” I knock on the door and call her name again. There’s no answer so I turn the knob and stick my head around the corner.

  At first it looks like the room is empty, until I hear a soft rustle on the other side of the bed. When I walk into the room, I see her. She’s sitting with her back to the wall between the window and the bed, her knees drawn up to her chest and her face buried between them.

  “Leave me alone.”

  Ignoring her soft plea, I slide down on the floor beside her, lifting an arm around her and tucking her close. It takes only a minute for her rigid body to relax into mine and a hand comes up to my chest, fisting the material of my shirt. Belatedly I realize I probably reek of sweat, cow, horse, and manure, but it hardly seems to matter.

  It would seem I’m unable to keep my distance when I know she’s hurting. I sit there quietly, listening to my mother-in-law’s soft footfalls going down the stairs, while absorbing Taz’s grief until I feel her silent tears soaking my shirt to the skin.

  “What did she say to you?” I finally ask softly, repeating my earlier question to Sarah.

  She pulls her head back, and I involuntarily notice how pretty she is, even with her eyes swollen and nose running. “What?”

  “Mom; what did she say to upset you?”

  “It’s not her. It’s me.”

  “I don’t understand.” I brush aside one of her dreads stuck to her tear-streaked cheek.

  “I asked her to come,” she explains. I keep a straight face, even though I’m surprised as hell. “To help me go through Nicky’s stuff. I’ve been procrastinating long enough, and I should get it done while I still have time. When I mentioned it to Kathleen this week, she suggested I ask Mom to give me a hand. I thought…well, I’m not sure what I thought, but it actually was a good thing. Cleansing in a way.”

  “So this is why you’re sitting on the bedroom floor crying?”

  She smirks at my doubtful tone—which I like—but then she sits back creating some distance between us, which I like less. “I’m not crying because of anything she said. Not this time. I’m upset because I’m starting to realize a few things about myself that aren’t particularly flattering.”

  I lift my knees and rest my now empty arms on them. “I find that hard to believe.” The words are out before I can check them.

  “Believe it,” she immediately replies, apparently oblivious to the meaning behind my statement. “It’s me who has some soul-searching to do.”

  “You certainly aren’t the only one,” I admit, realizing I should probably apologize to Sarah for my earlier knee-jerk reaction. “Let me know if you want company. Maybe we can be each other’s sounding board.”

  She doesn’t answer, but she gives me a wobbly smile. Before I give into the temptation to kiss those full, smiling lips, I push myself to my feet. Bending down only to kiss the top of her head. “I have an apology to deliver,” I announce, before walking out of her room.

  I’m relieved to find Sarah in the kitchen, washing a few mugs by hand in the sink. I reach over her shoulder to pluck the rag from her fingers before turning her in my hold.

  “I’m sorry, Mom. I jumped to conclusions I had no business jumping to.”

  For a brief moment, I feel her arms tightening around me before she lets go and steps out of my reach. “Forgiven,” she says, before her face scrunches up. “But your stench is inexcusable. For the sake of humanity, go have a shower. I’ll grab the kids from the bus and get them settled.”

  I don’t bother arguing and do what she suggests. My thoughts started running the moment the warm water stream starts pelting my back, replaying the past half hour in my mind. Something Taz said keeps nagging at me. “I should get it done while I still have time.”

  Still has time? What does that mean?

  I rush through my shower while anger starts building in my veins. With a towel around my hips, I slip into the bedroom to grab clean clothes and almost bump into Taz dragging a couple of garbage bags out into the hallway.

  Ignoring her sharp intake of breath, I lean into her space.

  “What exactly did you mean, you ‘should get it done while you still have time’? Are you going somewhere?”

  “What?” She takes a step back, but I simply close the distance.

  “Is there something you forgot to tell me?”

  Suddenly her hand is in the middle of my chest, burning my skin. I barely notice the force she tries to put behind it. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but you may wanna back up.”

  I take a step back, close my eyes, and suck in air through my nose, trying to calm myself down before I do or say something I’ll regret. Again.

  I’m normally a pretty cool and collected guy, but since Nicky ended up in the hospital and her sister showed up, I feel like I’ve been taken on an emotional rollercoaster ride, hanging on by the skin of my teeth.

  “Earlier,” I finally trust myself to say, “you mentioned you wanted to get Nicky’s stuff sorted ‘while you still have time.’ Time before what?”

  Realization steals over her face and her eyes go big with understanding. Finally.

  “Oh. I start my jo
b on Monday.”

  “Job?”

  She looks a little sheepish when she answers, “I got a position with Shannon County Home Health Care. Shit. I should’ve mentioned something.”

  “You think?”

  “I’m just picking up a few shifts. Only during school hours,” she quickly adds.

  Her hand is still resting on my chest when I lean forward, gently butting my forehead to hers. “We really need to learn to communicate better,” I whisper.

  “I know.” Her response is no more than a sigh.

  “Fuck. I’m going to kiss you now.”

  My mouth is a breath away from hers when the front door slams open and the kids’ voices fill the house.

  The next moment Taz is gone, hurrying down the stairs.

  Chapter Eleven

  Taz

  “Auntie Taz?”

  “Yes, Spencer?”

  “How come you don’t have kids?”

  I almost drop the knife I’m using to spread cream cheese on the bagel he wanted to take for lunch. Where on earth did that come from?

  “Well…” I start, turning to the boy sitting at the kitchen table, “…I’m not married, and you need a mom and a dad to have a baby.” I have no idea whether Spencer knows even the basic logistics of making a child, but I figure my response is safe enough.

  He does not seem satisfied. His face scrunches up and he appears to be thinking hard. “But you don’t really need a dad. Colin doesn’t have a dad, he has two moms.”

  Oh boy.

  I lick my upper lip when I feel beads of sweat pop up. “It’s possible. Sometimes, if a woman badly wants a baby, there are doctors who can help with that.”

  “So why don’t you get a doctor to help you have a baby? Don’t you want kids?”

  I hear a muffled sound behind me. Throwing a glance over my shoulder I see Rafe leaning against the door opening, a grin on his face and one eyebrow raised high.

  “I didn’t say that.” I focus back on Spencer and try to ignore his father behind me. “The truth is, I love kids, which is why I’m so lucky I get to help look after you two.”

  “All right, Son. Enough with the interrogation,” Rafe finally speaks up behind me. “Are you almost done with your cereal? Sofie’s already brushing her teeth. You may wanna hurry up or she’ll beat you to the bus stop.”

  I press my lips together to hide my grin when Spencer shoves two huge spoonfuls in his mouth, leaps off the chair, and bolts past his father out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

  “You’re cultivating their competitive nature,” I accuse him, turning around.

  “Absolutely I am,” he says unapologetically. “And I’ll keep doing so as long as it serves me.”

  I turn back to the kids’ lunches and snicker. “We’ll talk again when they hit puberty and both of them run circles around you.”

  “Are you laughing at me?” Rafe leans his body against the counter beside me, and I try to ignore my body’s now almost Pavlovian response to his proximity.

  “No more than you laughing at me during your son’s inquisition,” I fire back, as I zip up the kids’ lunch totes and reach for my coffee.

  “Fair enough.” He grabs the travel mug I’ve started filling for him in the morning and takes a sip. “What does your day look like?”

  I’m a little taken aback by the casual question. It feels almost…domestic. Something has shifted these last few days, since our run-in upstairs. Who am I kidding? Since our almost kiss in his bedroom. I may have run, but in my mind I’ve felt his lips on mine over and over again. I give a little shake to clear my head. “Uh, I’m picking up my uniform at the Shannon County Home Health Care office and meeting with my coordinator this morning, and after that I thought I’d finish clearing Nicky’s stuff out of the dresser. That is, if you don’t mind? I just figured—”

  “Fine by me. Thank you for doing that, by the way. I realize it isn’t an easy task.”

  I smile at him and shrug my shoulders. “It seems so final, getting rid of her things. It’s a little invasive. At times it feels like I’m getting rid of her, but then I remind myself I’m merely cleaning up things that clutter her memory.”

  “Mmm, that’s a good way to look at it.

  The thunder of a pair of footsteps racing down the stairs has me stick my head out of the kitchen. “Guys, slow down. One of these days you’ll be a pile of broken bones at the bottom of the stairs.”

  “I win!” Spencer announces proudly, clearly not having heard a single word I said. I cast an accusatory glance at Rafe who winks at me, apparently finding the situation amusing.

  “Only because you skipped half your teeth brushing,” Sofie stomps past me, snatching her lunch bag off the counter.

  “Put a sweater on or something, it’s still chilly in the mornings,” I call after them when I feel Rafe right behind me in the doorway.

  “It’s already almost sixty-eight degrees out,” he whispers by my ear, his breath stroking my skin. “All those years in a tropical climate has thrown off your thermostat.”

  “Whatever,” I mumble, but a shiver runs down my spine as his body brushes past me.

  “I’m out on farm visits again today, but call my cell if you need me,” he announces over his shoulder, as he herds the kids out the door.

  This is also a recent development, the reminders to contact him. It’s like he’s heeding his own comment about better communication. Instead of keeping himself distant like he did before, he’s now clearly placing himself in the middle of the household. He’s making it hard to ignore him.

  It’s already lunchtime when I get home.

  I struggle to get the door open and stumble inside; dropping half the load I’m trying to manage with one arm.

  My meeting ran a little longer than I’d anticipated when Nathan, my new boss, asked a million questions about my work with Doctors Without Borders. He admitted, once upon a time, he’d fantasized about working in underdeveloped countries, but he’d met his wife and started a family, which effectively ended that dream.

  He’s a nice guy, a little older—I peg him at mid-forties—but with an obvious love for his job. When he went over my schedule with me, he briefly described each of the patients and informed me he’d be tagging along the first week to introduce me.

  I was relieved to see the uniform: navy blue scrub pants, navy T-shirts with a logo, and a zip-up sweater in the same color. I’d been imagining something more hideous I’d be forced to wear. I’m not one for uniforms of any kind—never really had to wear one—but I can live with simple scrubs and a tee.

  When I walked out of the office, I had a large bag of clothes and a big binder with details on the patients I’d be seeing. Something to familiarize myself with over the weekend.

  I haul the bags into the kitchen, put away the groceries I picked up on the way home, and eat a quick sandwich while flipping through the binder. A glance at the clock tells me I barely have two hours left before the kids get off the bus, and I still have one task to finish.

  Steeling myself, I dump my plate in the sink, grab the bag with my uniforms, and make my way upstairs.

  The top drawer is underwear and socks, none of which I particularly care to keep or hand off to Goodwill. It would appear my sister had a taste for lace, which doesn’t surprise me. She started ordering from Victoria’s Secret when she got her first job at the grocery store in town. I don’t share her love for lingerie and generally buy my cotton panties in bulk.

  The whole thing ends up in the garbage pile.

  The second drawer yields tops and T-shirts, some of which date back to our high school years. I smile when I come across a familiar concert tee.

  I had a crush on the lead singer since I first saw the local band play at a school function. I think I was about fifteen, which would’ve made Nicky seventeen. When I found out they would be playing an open-air concert in a park in Mountain View a few weeks later, I begged my sister to take me, knowing there was no way Mom and Dad would ever
allow it. I would’ve asked Kathleen, but Mountain View is a forty-minute drive and neither of us had a driver’s license. Nicky did.

  She never would’ve agreed to it if I hadn’t caught Andrew Fryer with his hand up her shirt behind the restrooms at the practice fields the week before. A little blackmail went a long way.

  It hadn’t been hard to sneak out, since my parents were usually in bed by nine thirty, ten o’clock. Unfortunately they were wide awake when we tried to sneak back in at two in the morning, giggling our asses off. Apparently Dad was getting ready to go out on an emergency call.

  It hadn’t been the first time—and would definitely not be the last—I dragged my sister into my adventures. It was, however, the first time my parents clued in, which is probably when I earned my label as troublemaker. We were grounded for a month, but at least we both had a concert T-shirt to show for it.

  I put the shirt to the side. I’m keeping it.

  The bottom drawer nets a stack of sweaters and some yoga pants. I may want to keep some of those. I don’t have much in the way of cold-weather clothes. I sort through the stack, until I get to the last sweater, a gray zip-up hoodie. I lift it up to check for holes when a large manila envelope falls out.

  It had been hidden inside.

  Rafe

  “Two more visits next week and then you’re done,” Lisa says when I hand her the updated files.

  “Until September,” I point out.

  “Yeah, well, that’s three months away. A whole summer. Which reminds me, do you want me to block off vacation time on the schedule?”

  Vacation time? I can’t remember the last time I took time off in the summer.

  Not since that disastrous week when Sofie was maybe three, or four. She’d been an adventurous little thing, often bringing me critters—frogs, worms, and even small snakes—when she came in from spending time playing outside. It had been my idea to go camping at Table Rock State Park on the Arkansas border, about three hours away.